When Does Incompetence Become Cover for Intentional Wrongdoing?

This is going to be a debrief of our Harris County election last Tuesday, which was pretty much a disaster.

In a pair of press conferences over the weekend (Friday here and Monday here), Harris County Republican Chair Cindy Siegel listed some of the problems:

·       Double booking election workers to the same polling place.

·       Telling election judges who were planning to work that they weren’t needed, instead of sending them where they were needed.

·       Delivering equipment to the wrong places—even to a place that wasn’t even a polling place.

·       Missing equipment.

·       Equipment that didn’t work.

·       Delivering the wrong size paper (the very long ballot required two legal-size pages; they sent letter size to some locations).

·       Poor training, delivered late in the process.

And more.

from left, Alan Vera, Sen. Paul Bettencourt, Cindy Siegel,
Marga Matthews, and Steven Mitby,
screenshot from Friday's press conference

First today I’ll debrief our polling place, which, because of our experience, handled problems relatively smoothly. But—there was a lot the County did that made things more difficult than they needed to be.

Then I’ll cover a bit more of what happened countywide that has led to a lawsuit asking for the resignation of the unelected bureaucrat hired to run our elections “more efficiently.”

 

Our Polling Place

We got to run our usual polling place this time. But back in November, we waited and waited for the County to give us our assignment. When they finally did, they assigned us to another place about 20 minutes away, and assigned our polling place to some random Democrat judge. Traditionally, the party with the majority of votes in the previous election gets to run that place, so I was entitled to it as precinct chair. But since the Democrats took over County government in 2018, they have been trying to marginalize precinct chairs and prevent our connection to our voters. So this wasn’t that surprising.

That November election—a low-turnout election with very little on the ballot—was our first experience with the new paper ballot system. It was a good one to practice on. The system is built by the same makers as the previous eSlate system: Hart. We don’t use Dominion anywhere here in Texas; too many flaws. This paper system was first used last May’s special district elections. But our area didn’t have anything on the ballot, so we didn’t experience it then. Anyway, this election is the third round for the County to be using it.

This system, in theory, is pretty good. Nothing is connected to the internet except the ePollbooks—the tablet we use to identify registered voters, which we’ve been using since around 2016. We use photo ID to check them in. A driver’s license works best; it has a code on the back that can be scanned to bring up their registration, which works pretty well. Other forms of ID—or none of those, under certain circumstances—can be used for those without a driver's license. Some of those we have to type in the information and do a search of the voter rolls. When that doesn’t work, the presiding judge handles it with a call to the County to verify a person’s eligibility.

Once the person is checked in, we print them a code to use at the voting booth. In this system, the machine is called a Duo. They can enter their code in any Duo tied to the Controller that printed out their code. They then insert the paper, just until it catches; it hangs out. They make their voting decisions on the touch screen of the Duo. Once they’re ready, the Duo prints the ballot. It is heat-sensitive paper, which makes it permanent and difficult to duplicate. Once the ballot is printed, the voter goes over to the Scanner, a totally separate machine, and inserts the ballot. The Scanner records a digitally-scanned image of the ballot, saved in a sealed part of the machine, and the paper ballot is dropped into the ballot box below. So the digital scans are quick to count at the end of the voting day, but the paper ballots are available for comparison in case of a recount.

In theory, that’s all good. There are some physical difficulties. The Duo machines are prone to misfeed the paper. If a voter inserts the paper very carefully, with two hands and a lot of patience, no problem. But in real life paper frequently misfeeds.

Add to that, this past week’s ballot required two legal-sized pages—have I mentioned that we have the longest ballot in the country? There were 99 choices (89 races plus 10 resolutions) on the ballot. You need to insert the first page and let it hang out of the machine while you make all those choices on the touch screen. You need to do something with that second sheet of paper. We instructed voters to place it carefully alongside the privacy screen at the side of the Duo. But if a person held it in hand, or let it get scrunched or bent, is was more likely to misfeed. We were suspicious that some machines were more likely to misfeed than others, maybe because paper that had gotten stuck earlier left scraps inside that got in the way. But we were pretty busy running an election to verify that.

For every paper that got scrunched, we had to replace the paper and reprint that page—and we accounted for each spoiled page, and identified on the voter on the judge’s tablet. Those spoiled pages got placed in an envelope for that purpose and were returned to the counting center with the judge’s box at the end of the day.

This was a problem everywhere and kept us busy. We had a sense there were more Republican spoiled ballots than Democrat—but then we had a lot more Republican voters. So it’s hard to know whether the percentage was comparable, or whether our equipment was more often malfunctioning.

The real problems of the day—all around Harris County—were at the Scanner. Sometimes the Scanner wouldn’t scan a page. This happened if the Duo misprinted or smeared. This could easily happen if a Duo only slightly misfed but came through eventually and the voter didn’t notice. It could happen if a voter thought the Duo was finished printing and gave the paper a tug just a tad too early. Anyway, it was a vulnerability. It happened a number of times at our location, but nowhere near as often as the Duo misfeeds.

When the Scanner would not scan a page, we could place the unscannable page in the emergency ballot box, attached; those ballots would be hand counted at Central Counting at night. We followed procedure at the end of the day, placing those unscanned ballots from the emergency box into a special envelope for the purpose, and then sealed them inside the Scanner—which has a coded seal related to chain of custody, as all counted materials do.

But the County changed procedure during the day. Not entirely. We still did all the right things. But this was such a problem for so many polling places, with workers new to the equipment, that they feared people would not follow procedure and would leave those ballots inside the ballot box container.

We broke down the ballot box container as trained. We took out the gray ballot box from inside, made sure there were no stray ballots fallen elsewhere in the box container (there weren’t), and sealed the ballot box. We took the ballots out of the emergency box and placed them in their special envelope, sealed inside the Scanner machine, which was now separated from the box container. And we folded up the box container, which was completely empty of ballots, and placed it on the rack with the other voting equipment—and sealed the rack.

We got to our counting location about 9:40 PM (more below on why it took so long to get there). At 10:10 PM my husband, the presiding judge, got a text—that we didn’t see on his phone at that time—instructing us to remember to bring the black, folded up ballot box container with us to the dropoff location. When we got to the front of the line another 15 minutes or so later, we had everything in order—except no black empty folded-up ballot box container.

It turns out they had sent a text to the tablets—the ePollbooks, but the presiding and alternate judges keep theirs separate to do their other duties—sometime early afternoon. We were busy all day and did not notice the text. It’s not obvious when a text has come in; you have to remember to go look for them.

So at the dropoff location, the official from the County is saying, “That’s on us. We own that. We should have communicated better.” But how do they take accountability for that error? They try to send us back to our polling location in the middle of the night, where we would have to break the seal on the equipment, and retrieve that item, and bring it back to them; but they would let us skip the line when we returned, so kind of them. It was going to require my husband calling the school contact to have them call the custodians to come to the door and let us in to do that—when we knew there were no ballots left inside, because we had followed the appropriate protocol as trained. So we didn’t go get it. Which meant we also didn’t leave the rest of the equipment unsealed, so that’s good for us.

That statement of “It’s our fault; we own that—but we’re making you make up for our mistakes anyway” was a theme of this election.

My husband picked up his equipment on Saturday at the appointed time. Lines got long later, despite appointments, but weren’t too bad for him. He had been warned they were a couple of hours behind at the beginning of the day, so they had adjusted all appointments until they could catch up. They called back on Sunday for him to come and get more ballot paper. According to the explanation, someone had miscalculated and planned for only the amount of paper for one per voter—when each voter needed two. But we actually needed about five times what they’d originally given us. It worked out, but it was an additional inconvenience. Fortunately the pickup location was only about 15 minutes from home.

equipment pickup line on Sunday, February 27
photo posted on Facebook by Robert Jeter III

On Monday night, before Election Day Tuesday, we needed to set up our equipment. We were given a spare orchestra room at the middle school where we usually run our polls. But we shouldn’t have to run a primary election in the same smallish room as the other party. Two years ago, slightly pre-COVID, we did it with a lot of inconvenience. My husband tried to get the school to allow them to use the hallway outside the room—which is already gated off from the rest of the school, so there’s no contact with students. The school said no, so we knew we were stuck. He had tried multiple times to find out who the Democrat PJ would be, to coordinate. There was none by Monday night.

It took about 2 ½ hours to do our setup—this is all so that the morning setup only takes another hour and a half, so we can open at 7:00 AM. The Democrat equipment was there, but was not set up.

He had his alarm set for 4:30 AM, to get to the polling place at 5:30, to be ready for the 7:00 AM start. At around midnight he got a text—asking him to run both the Republican Primary and the Democrat Primary—with no additional staff. He happened to wake and see the text, but at that point there wasn’t anything he could do to prepare.

The priority was to set up our polling place and then do what we could. This required the equipment setup that should have been done Monday night, plus getting the equipment turned on. He managed to get six Duos set up for the Democrats—in addition to the 14 Duos for Republicans. There were more Duos, but not more workers. We got a high school student technician, who was hired by the Democrats to report length of line every so often during the day—at the same $17/hour as the other clerks. We used her, under our supervision, because we had to, to run the Democrat Controller, checking in voters and handing them their codes. Late in the day we got a seventh Duo connected to their line. There were times when three to five Democrats waited in line for an available machine. Rarely did Republicans have to wait. We had more than double the number of machines, so we handled the higher number of voters (about 100 more Republicans than Democrats by end of day).

It took beyond 7:00 AM to get theirs open to voters. A couple of voters got told to vote elsewhere. Another stayed, seeing ours was getting close, because she’d already been to two other locations that weren’t yet open. Much of our delay was because their ePollbook tablet wasn’t working. It required the County to reset it remotely, but that couldn’t be done until their help line wasn’t busy and we could reach them.

So we handled all their voter instruction, machine help, and the extra take down of their polling place at the end of the day. And all the paperwork. Everything. For no extra pay except the extra hour or so that it took us to close down at the end of the day.

There was an explanation that the two county party chairs had consulted and worked together to help each other. So, at some polling places where Republican judges had quit at the last minute (because they weren’t willing to be blamed for running an election with the wrong equipment, etc.), Democrats stepped in, and vice versa. Except—ours didn’t quit at the last minute; they never hired one for our location. And, if we’d been told even a day earlier, we could have done that setup Monday night.

 

County Problems

Alan Vera, screenshot from here

This past Saturday we held our precinct conventions, at locations by House district, and I ran into Alan Vera, head of the HCRP Ballot Security Committee and national election expert. I asked him if we were going to debrief this election. I told him we didn’t have big fraud, but we had some problems. And he said, essentially, what I heard him say later, in today’s press conference. It was in response to a question about how the HCRP was characterizing the problems: incompetence, or intended to influence the outcome. Alan said,

I am wrestling with the question directly related to your comment. The question is this: At what point does election incompetence become the perfect camouflage for election malfeasance? Incompetence because, on equipment pickup day, dozens of judges, both Republican and Democrat, left the pickup point with no ballots at all to run the election. Nothing. But, at least as of right now, only Republican judges were given the wrong ballot size, so that their voters voting on the wrong ballot size, 10 to 13 of their votes at the edge of that 8 ½ by 11 paper will never be counted.

And there's at least 140 voters so far, that we know of, who lost those votes. On Election Day, scores of Republican and Democrat judges had to deal with equipment that didn't work. The Duos wouldn’t boot up; the Scanners wouldn’t scan. That was widespread. But it was only three Republican judges who got to their polls and found there was no equipment at all. Their voting equipment had been delivered to another location, which wasn't even a polling place.

So the question you asked is a good one. At what point does election incompetence lead to election malfeasance? We'll keep digging until we find out.

Let’s add a couple of other details. Longoria asked for an extension to the 24-hour counting requirement. This is law from the 1950s and 1960s, not some new legislation from just last summer. Every previous election official has been able to meet the requirement. She finally got the count done, and certified that all the votes were counted. And then, I think it was Saturday, said (paraphrased)—"Oh, by the way, there’s another 10,000 mail-in ballots that we found that we hadn’t counted. Oops!"

No election official should ever be allowed to get away with “finding” ballots after the counting has been completed. They had one job. Finding uncounted ballots means they failed in that job. It’s a complicated job that requires planning and experience—which this unelected election administrator does not have, but was nevertheless hired by Lina Hidalgo without Republican approval, and without even unanimous Democrat approval.

We had high voter turnout on the Republican side. That was good. But we had polling places that didn’t have enough voting machines for Republicans. They are not interchangeable with Democrat machines on Election Day; setup is different. At one location, 300 Republicans were in line to vote at 7:00 PM; they stayed until all voted, as they are entitled to do, which took until 11:00 PM.

Did we mention that the Director of Training was fired two days before the start of Early Voting? While it ought to be happening far ahead, most training for Election Day workers happens during those two weeks. In fact, they were so late at appointing us—despite our giving our intention to serve months in advance—that the first week of training dates was over by then, and all possible trainings were at bad times (during our church on Sunday was when my husband had to do Judge training) or a long drive to the south end of the county. The training, we thought, was actually improving, now that we can do it in person—and they limit ADA training to the few minutes of necessary info. So I’m not sure why the Director was fired.

So, there were all these issues affecting voters who want to cast their votes. And do they own up to the problem? No. They blame voters for incompetence (don’t know how to put the paper in). They blame presiding judges for incompetence. They blame last summer’s election law changes—which apply to mail-in ballots, which were part of Early Voting count, not Election Day count—different places, different procedures entirely. They even claimed, “See, the errors were found; that means the system is working,” as if that vindicated them. By the way, it was the Secretary of State that found the discrepancy of those 10,000 votes, not Longoria’s “system.”

central counting taking place, screenshot from here

What we have is an absolute mess—followed by a coverup.

What we need is for this to never happen again.

We have a small countywide election coming up in early May. Both parties have a runoff election May 24. We need things fixed by then. But, even more importantly, we need things fixed before the high-turnout November midterm election. Last Tuesday’s disaster was with a 15% voter turnout. What happens when we get a 50% voter turnout?

Senator Paul Bettencourt suggests that we get rid of Hidalgo’s unelected election bureaucrat and return the duties of county elections to the County Clerk. Currently the County Clerk is a Democrat. Bettencourt, a Republican, is making that suggestion. Anyone has to be better than Longoria and crew. And we need someone accountable to the people, with some kind of stake in keeping us from being the worst run election of any large county in the nation.

The lawsuit is intended to force Longoria and her crew to resign or be fired. While that is necessary, I look forward to a day we can return our elections to a Republican County Clerk, with experience and integrity. We miss those days.

Primary Picks, Part III: Judicial Races and Propositions

This is the third post of three going through our extraordinarily long ballot. In Part I we went through statewide races. In Part II we covered Congressional and County races.

Here in Part III, we’ll be covering just the contested Primary judicial races, starting at the statewide level.

As a reminder, Texas has a two-part Supreme Court. One part is called the Supreme Court; it handles civil law cases. The other is called the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the Supreme Court level in Texas for criminal cases.

Texas Court System diagram found on Judge Scott Walker's website

Supreme Court, Place 9

The choices are David J. Schenck and Evan Young. Young has the endorsements of Conservative Coalition of Harris County (with 83% of their vote), my SREC committeewoman Deborah Fite, and Texas Home School Coalition. I took a look at Houston Region Business Coalition, The LinkLetter, and Texas Conservative Review; all three went with Evan Young.

Texas Right to Life supports David Schenck, as do Texas Eagle Forum, True Texas Project, and Grassroots America. He has been on the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals (that’s the Texas 5^th Circuit). He claims to be a strict constructionist. But I’m unaware of any reason to particularly challenge a Republican incumbent who seems to be doing well.

Evan Young was appointed to this position on the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Abbott, so he’s the incumbent. I’m unaware of complaints about Young. He has videos on his website from his swearing in ceremony, and he sounds like a constitutionalist. He clerked for Antonin Scalia. His wife, by the way, clerked for Neil Gorsuch.

I’m going to take the word of so many and give Evan Young my vote.

 

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5

The choices are Scott Walker and Clint Morgan.

Scott Walker was elected to this position, winning handily. If there’s reason to oust an incumbent, it had better be good. Clint Morgan is not afraid to take on his opponent directly; he lays out some stats on his website that are pretty convincing. Walker lacks credentials and productivity by comparison to Morgan. But then Morgan shows a couple more graphs. One compares Walker to all other appellate judges elected since 1992 who have served 5 years or more; Walker underperforms all of them, by quite a lot. Since his election, most judges have ruled on 35-50 cases, one as high as 60. Walker has ruled on only 18. Morgan’s website claims, “Scott Walker is the least productive judge in the recorded history of the Court.” He also notes that Walker, a former defense attorney, leans toward leniency. You might need to look case-by-case to know whether that assessment is accurate. Morgan is a prosecutor, and a very productive one, from here in Harris County.

comparison chart from Clint Morgan's website

Before taking a look, I would have thought there wasn’t reason to go against an incumbent. But Morgan has the practically unanimous support of all the endorsement lists I look at, including Texas Right to Life. CCHC gave him 100% support. Deborah Fite, my SREC committeewoman, added a comment only on this race, saying, “This race may be the most important on ballot.” Walker lists no endorsements on his website, and I didn’t find any. I’ll be voting for Clint Morgan.

 

County District Judicial Races

Note that, with Democrat sweeps the past two elections, the only Republican judges are appointed ones. There aren’t any Republican judges being challenged in the Primary. And there are only a few races in which there are multiple Republicans running. Those are the only ones I’ll cover here.

 

Family District Judge, 308^th Judicial District

The choices are Todd Frankfort and Michael Patrick Delaney.

I am told by another lawyer who is also running for a judge position that Todd Frankfort is one of the best around, excellent. He’s board certified. And he has a good judicial temperament. According to his website, he “has been selected as a ‘Super Lawyer’ every year since 2012, received the Houston Bar Association ‘President’s Award’ for outstanding service in 2004 and 2012, and received the Houston Bar Association ‘Merit Award’ in 2003.” He has the endorsements from the LINKLetter, Texas Conservative Review, Houston Region Business Coalition, and my SREC representative.

Delaney has been a family law attorney for 26 years in private practice. His website mentions no endorsements, and I found only a 67% vote (not enough for an endorsement) from the Conservative Coalition of Harris County.

Frankfort looks to me like the better pick.

 

Family District Judge, 311^th Judicial District

The two candidates are Gardner Eastland and Ray VanNorman. Many significant endorsements go to Ray VanNorman: CCHC (100% endorsement), Texas Right to Life, Texas Home School Coalition, Texas Conservative Review, my SREC committeewoman. He has strong conservative credentials.

Gardner Eastland has fewer endorsements: Houston Region Business Coalition, BIZPAC, and C Club.

However, when I talked with a lawyer friend, he pointed out that VanNorman lacks experience in the area of family law. On Eastland’swebsite he says, “My Republican opponent has never handled a divorce in Harris County, Texas. In fact, he has never filed a lawsuit of any kind with the Harris County District Clerk’s Office.” Eastland has handled over 500 family law cases in Harris County.

Family law is an area where experience gives better results to families. A wrong decision can ruin lives, maybe for generations.

I feel odd going against the conservative majority here. I think VanNorman must be truly conservative. Maybe civil law would be a better fit for him. But on this one I’m going with the experienced candidate, Gardner Eastland.

 

Family District Judge, 313^th Judicial District

The two candidates are Julie A. Ketterman and Rachel Leal-Hudson, I think.

This race is confusing to me. By the time I got ready to study the race, it looked like this was over. Ketterman had filed suit, saying Leal-Hudson lacked the minimum 250 signatures. Most judicial candidates, by the way, got over 750 signatures, which allowed them to waive the filing fee. Leal-Hudson, I’m told, got into the race late and missed all the signature signing parties. There was a jury trial. Leal-Hudson lost. That meant that, even though the ballot would have her name on it, votes cast for her would not count.

That’s what I thought almost two weeks ago. But since then I continue to get campaign emails. I got a mailer a couple of days ago—those aren’t cheap. And endorsements continue to come in.

I looked up the case. The jury found for the plaintiff, February 4. However, there’s a note that says an appeal has been filed.

I don’t know what to do with this information. Leal-Hudson has endorsements from THSC, CCHC (100%), Deborah Fite, LINKLetter, Texas Conservative Review, HRBC, Rep. Briscoe Cain, PoliceInc, Houston Police Officers Union, and Kingwood Tea Party.

Kettering has 22 years of experience in family and CPS law, and has taught courses on the subject. Leal-Hudson has 11 years of experience in family and CPS law, plus the addition of being the oldest of 19 adopted children, so she has a lot of first-hand experience as well.

I don’t know how to decide this. If there were no court case, I’d probably be swayed by the outpouring of support going for Leal-Hudson. Ketterman didn’t answer the questionnaire for CCHC, so I couldn’t learn more about her. I may go ahead and vote Rachel Leal-Hudson, trusting those who have vetted her, and hope that the court case is resolved appropriately.

 

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 2

The candidates are Zee Adam Gire, Bret S. Kisluk, and Bob Wolfe. Bret Kisluk spoke to our Tea Party and was impressive (video here). I haven’t met the others.

Gire is a businessman, not a lawyer. A law degree isn’t required for the job, but understanding of the law would sure help. He has a couple of precinct chair endorsements. Wolfe got the LINKLetter endorsement. Kisluk has endorsements from CCHC (92%), Texas Conservative Review, Houston Region Business Coalition, and my SREC Committeewoman.

I read their questionnaire answers for CCHC.  Gire was unaware that the Justice of the Peace doesn’t do criminal cases (see answer 13). It looks like there would be a steep learning curve.

Norman Rockwell's "Marriage License"

I try not to judge too harshly on grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, because most people need someone like me to clean up their writing. (Even I could use such a person from time to time.) But Wolfe’s questionnaire answers were remarkably error-filled, enough to be a serious distraction. It says to me that this person doesn’t handle details well. Wolfe also seems to think it’s wrong for Justices of the Peace to spend their time performing weddings. But—the single thing most of us know that JPs do is marriages. There’s a Normal Rockwell painting of a couple going before the JP. He’s an attorney, but he doesn’t have judicial experience.

Kisluk is a part-time municipal judge in three jurisdictions. He knows the law, and he knows how to handle a court docket with proven efficiency. Wolfe brought up that he spends too much time performing marriages, supposedly for the extra money (again, it’s what JPs do) and has even done same-sex weddings. While I would prefer that he didn’t, the law requires that someone be available to do it. I think we would be happy with Kisluk as Justice of the Peace; I’m voting for him.

 

Propositions

These are put forth by the SREC Committee, the two committee members from each senatorial district representing that district at the state level. The propositions, even if approved by the vote, are non-binding. They do not become law. They are intended to direct the next legislative session on issues and policies of importance.

I trust the SREC as a whole. But, as with any legislative body, they are made up of a fairly diverse membership representing different interests and points of view. You do not need to feel required to agree with all these. You might even want to start from the position: convince me to vote for this.

So, I’ll just go through the list and give my impressions. Take it for what it’s worth. Do your own thinking. The numbers after the title are the SREC members voting for, against, or not voting; there are 62 SREC members plus a chair and vice chair who don’t typically vote.

 

Proposition 1: Border Security (61-0-2)

In light of the federal government’s refusal to defend the southern border, Texas should immediately deploy the National Guard, Texas Military Forces, and necessary state law enforcement to seal the border, enforce immigration laws, and deport illegal aliens.

 

This is already taking place. At our expense. I’d like to see a way to get the federal government to pay us back for doing its job. But no one has yet to come up with a way. I’ve offered an idea—have all income tax earned in Texas to go through a sort of escrow account handled by the state of Texas, from which we extract what the federal government should not be collecting; and then we pass along the appropriate remainder. But maybe there’s not a legal way to accomplish it. Anyway, I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 2: Eliminate Property Tax (57-3-3)

Texas should eliminate all property taxes within ten (10) years without implementing a state income tax.

 

Son Political Sphere is absolutely against this; he doesn’t believe this plan—particularly Huffine’s would be anything but extraordinarily unfair to everyone. Do the math. I have heard from people who actually had to move because they couldn’t afford the property taxes on their life-long home that they had paid off. That’s just wrong. So I’m willing to look at alternatives. But, unlike many friends, I’m going to vote NO on this until I can see a plan I feel better about.

 

 

Proposition 3: Vaccine Mandate (61-1-0)

Texans should not lose their job nor students be penalized for declining a COVID-19 vaccine. 

 

This is an obvious YES. Coercion is wrong, which we determined in the Nuremberg Code of 1947.

 

 

Proposition 4: Parents’ Rights and Critical Race Theory (60-0-1)

Texas schools should teach students basic knowledge and American exceptionalism and reject Critical Race Theory and other curricula that promote Marxist doctrine and encourage division based on creed, race, or economic status.

 

Let me edit for clarity: Texas schools should must teach students basic knowledge and American exceptionalism; our schools must  and reject Critical Race Theory and other curricula that promote Marxist doctrine and encourage division based on creed, race, or economic status.

There might be other improvements to make, but in general I like this concept. We did pass a law basically doing this during the past legislative session. Still, in support of the idea I’ll vote YES.

 

 

Proposition 5: Right to Life (61-0-1)

Texas should enact a State Constitutional Amendment to defend the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, from fertilization until natural death. 

This would codify into the Constitution what the Republicans, and frankly a majority of Texans, want. We already have a trigger bill, outlawing abortion in Texas when/if the US Supreme Court reverses Roe, which could happen this year. Laws, however, can change; it’s harder to amend the Constitution and requires the approval of the people. So this would be a stronger protection. I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 6: Committee Chairs (61-1-0)

The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature should end the practice of awarding committee chairmanships to Democrats. 

I agree with this. I have been told by a representative that the theory was, if you give them some chairmanship where they won’t do much mischief, it keeps them from spending all their energy thwarting Republicans. I don’t think that strategy is working. And certainly any legislator who fled the state to deny a quorum ought to expect no favors from our side. So, I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 7: Election Integrity (58-0-2)

Texas should protect the integrity of our elections by verifying that registered voters are American citizens, restoring felony penalties and enacting civil penalties for vote fraud, and fighting any federal takeover of state elections.  

I support this, of course. I think the phrase “restoring felony penalties and enacting civil penalties for vote fraud” is difficult to understand. They’re trying to say a lot in a short statement, but I need explanation there. I think there must be some we had felony penalties for that were lowered to misdemeanors and we want to restore the felony penalties. Then, also, there are addition penalties (are they all civil?) for other types of vote fraud that don’t yet have penalties attached. Anyway, the intent is good, and this is a resolution, not a law. So I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 8: Gender Modification (59-1-0)

Texas should ban chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital mutilation surgery on all minor children for sex transition purposes. 

Excellent concept. It’s already in our platform. Plank 246 looks like this:

246.             Gender Identity: We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity. For the purpose of attempting to affirm a person 21 or under if their perception is inconsistent with their biological sex, no medical practitioner or provider may engage in the following practices:

a.       Intervene in any way to prevent natural progression of puberty.

b.       Administer or provide opposite sex hormones.

c.       Perform any surgery on healthy body parts of the underage person.

I’m not fully satisfied with that wording either, but the intention of both the proposition and this plank are to outlaw permanent sex transition of minors. There have also been attempts to label this sort of “therapy” as child abuse. Anyway, I’m in favor of the concept and will vote YES.

 

 

Proposition 9: Parental Educational Relief (57-0-0)

Texas parents and guardians should have the right to select schools, whether public or private, for their children, and the funding should follow the student. 

I’m strongly in favor of school choice. We also need to make sure that the state does not attach any strings to that funding. You’d be surprised how many Republican legislators don’t believe in this concept and don’t want a public vote that will reveal that to their constituents. I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 10: Freedom of Conscience (45-7-1)

Texans affirm that our freedoms come from God and that the government should have no control over the conscience of individuals.  

Our freedoms—our rights—either come from God or from some fallible human. If it’s a human, such person can take away whatever they have granted. But God’s promises are sure.  Governments are instituted among men to protect our rights, not to grant or deny them. If a government isn’t protecting our rights, that tyranny’s power needs to be taken away and restored to the people. So, I’m voting YES.

The Right Questions to Get the Right Stuff

We just got past an election a month ago. It was an off-year election, but here we had a very important school board problem to take care of. That took a lot of energy to accomplish. But now, before we even have time to breathe and enjoy the holidays, the primary election season is upon us.

In a primary election, you get to choose who your candidates will be to represent your party. In some cases, when an area is strong in your party, say R+7 or so (meaning Republicans, based on past voting history, are expected to win by 7 percentage points), then what you’re likely doing in the primary is choosing your next representative, because the November election will be mostly a formality.

That’s the situation for our congressional race. Texas got two new congressional seats following the US census. One of them plopped down in Houston, and that affected my area. I’m now part of the new CD 38. There are eight Republican candidates. We heard from seven of them in a forum last Wednesday evening, for precinct chairs and their invited volunteers. We’ll have another forum two weeks later, in a larger place for all interested Republican voters. We heard from several candidates at our November Tea Party meeting, and we’re hearing from several more this month. I haven’t committed yet, but I’m leaning toward a candidate, someone I know well, who is very knowledgeable about the Constitution and conservative principles. I believe that’s what we need. I’m resistant to some higher-level party apparatus that is pushing a candidate who has not yet connected with the grassroots.

Another important race is the Harris County Judge position. In larger counties like ours, the County Judge is an administrative position. They work with the Commissioners Court to decide on policy and budget decisions. The County Judge we have now got in three years ago, when there was a huge amount of outside money supporting the Beto O’Rourke campaign for Senate, which fortunately failed against Ted Cruz. But the money did have the ability to tip the scales in Harris County, which had been 50-50 Democrat-Republican for some time and has crept slightly more Democratic the past few years. The County Judge, Lina Hidalgo, was elected as a 27-year-old without job experience. Harris County is maybe the second largest such local government entity in the US, with more than four million people. Hidalgo has been both incompetent and corrupt.

There are four Republican candidates in this race, and we should hear from all of them at this month’s Tea Party meeting.

We precinct chairs are hoping we can make our decisions in these races early, so we have campaign time before the March 1^st election.

In this effort to vet and choose candidates, we ask a lot of questions. Most of the time we only get a few minutes of speech plus a brief Q&A for each candidate, which is why we need multiple forums. There’s a group in Northwest Harris County that does a questionnaire as well, so I look forward to seeing that.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about the kinds of questions I’d like to ask. Some questions must deal with the particular duties of the job being sought. But some things are more principle based. And, particularly for the US Congress seat, understanding the Constitution—and loving it—is essential.

There are people who see politics, and campaigns, as a sort of sport. I do not. I see it as a serious duty for citizens to govern themselves. I want the best representation we can get. And I believe this is more urgent today than it has ever been. In each race, we need the best person to win, for all our sakes. Maybe asking the right questions will help us find the people with the right stuff.

Back in 2013, another off-election year after a presidential election year, I wrote a series of questions, based on the Spherical Model, with questions related to the Political, Economic, and Social Spheres. I find that these are still useful. There are a few issue-related questions I included in that post. So I’m repeating all of those, and then adding a few that seem relevant today. Feel free to ask these of any candidates you get a chance to talk to.

Political Sphere

·       What do you believe is the proper role of government, and what are the limits?

·       Do you have favorite portions of the US Constitution, and/or any portions that you think ought to be changed, clarified, or improved?

·       When the US Supreme Court makes a ruling that you believe is at odds with the Constitution, what do you think the executive and/or legislative branches should do in response to the ruling?

·       What do you believe is the proper balance between public safety and individual freedom, and what do you believe government needs to do to reach that balance?

·       Who are your favorite examples of a good president—since 1900—and what about them do you admire?

·       How do you define extremists, and what views do you think are examples of extreme?

 

Economic Sphere

·       What do you believe is the optimum percentage of GNP that should be taken in taxes?

·       What do you believe is the government’s role in contributing to economic health? For example, if there is a sudden recession (as we were hit with in 2008), how should government react?

·       What do you believe is government’s role in the distribution of income when there’s a wide discrepancy between the poor and the wealthy?

·       What do you believe should be government’s role in charitable help to the poor and suffering?

·       What do you believe are the purposes and limits of the commerce clause of the Constitution?

·       What do you believe is the role of the Federal Reserve, and how/whether it is benefiting the economy?

 

Civilization Sphere

 

·       What do you believe about the connection between moral values and the law?

·       Which institution is most responsible for raising a generation that will benefit society, and why: schools, government, churches, nonprofit organizations, sports teams, families?

·       Which constituency’s desires is public education best accountable to, and why: US government, state government, local government, teachers, students, parents/taxpayers?

·       What do you believe should be government’s role in homeschooling, private schools, charter schools, and school choice?

·       What do you think is government’s role in defining marriage, and why? 

 

Specific Issue Questions

·       What are your feelings concerning Obamacare, and what do you think should be done?

·       What do you believe are the motivations of people who support traditional (man/woman) marriage and family?

·       What are your beliefs about border security and immigration?

·       What do you believe is the proper role of government concerning climate?

·       What do you see as the US role in the world, and what is your view of the UN?

·       What are your opinions on national debt, national deficit, tax increases and/or cuts, and national budget?

 

New Questions This Year

·       It is likely that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade this year. How do you see Texas and the United States moving forward on this issue?

·       In the Declaration of Independence, we dissolved political bands, not for “light and transient causes,” but for a “long train of abuses and usurpations.” Assuming that restoring and preserving our Constitution is the goal, could there be a catalyst for dissolving political bands, intended to be indivisible, and returning Texas to an independent nation? What would trigger such an action after the long train of abuses and usurpations we’re already seeing?

·       One of the actual responsibilities of the federal government is protection of our national borders. When the federal government fails in that duty, what should our state do to protect our sovereignty?

·       When the government deprives a person of property, such as a business, as it did during the pandemic shutdowns, what is the government’s obligation to restore that property to those who were deprived of it?

·       Is there anything that can/should be done about election law crimes of the past election? And what do you see as the way to restore election integrity going forward?

·       While conservatives generally support freedom for business, what can/should we do when large monopolies censor certain points of view on their platforms, or companies make requirements for employment or attendance based on private health decisions?