Houston Chronicle. May 18, 2016.
Barring refugees: Locking out those who desperately need help is not the Texas way; it’s not who we are
It’s sadly ironic that a state founded by polyglot groups of people from everywhere imaginable, a state sustained throughout the 19th century by refugees from Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Italy and elsewhere, a state enriched throughout the 20th century and into the 21st by refugees from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other nations around the globe has to tolerate small-minded elected officials who seek to lock the door in the faces of men, women and children desperately seeking refuge.
Attorney General Ken Paxton is the latest. Someone needs to remind Paxton that’s not Texas. That’s not who we are.
His efforts to bar refugees from war-ravaged Syria and Iraq have been unsuccessful, so far, but he keeps on trying (maybe to detract attention from his own legal morass.) Last week he issued a nonbinding legal opinion claiming that Texas can withhold federal funding to nonprofit refugee resettlement groups if these groups ignore the state’s security verification program for Syrian and Iraqi refugees being brought to the state.
Earlier this year, Dallas Federal Judge David Godsby denied the state’s request to halt the federal refugee resettlement program in Texas because of security concerns cited by Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott. Godsby ruled that the state failed to show proof that there is any credible threat linking terrorist groups to refugees that have been screened and sent to Texas. Since then, several dozen Syrian and Iraqi refugees have relocated to Dallas, Houston and elsewhere.
Certainly security is a valid concern, but the Syrian and Iraqi refugees underwent months of screening, even before they got to the United States. Subject to the highest level of security checks of any travelers to the U.S., they have been investigated by the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center and the departments of Homeland Security, Defense and State. They are arguably less of a danger than refugees arriving from countries not torn by war. They’re here to rebuild war-torn lives, educate their children, find meaningful work.
Houstonians in particular are well aware that refugees make good, productive citizens. Thus, we share the exasperation of Houston immigration lawyer Gordon Quan with officials such as Paxton who continue, in Quan’s words, “to look for boogeymen, whether in rest rooms, voting booths or with women and children fleeing terrorism. What a waste of time.”
As Quan points out, “We are better than this.”
And so we are. In the proud tradition of our Texas forebears, we are bigger, stronger and more open to a wider world than our fear-mongering elected officials would suggest. We would encourage Texas refugee agencies in Houston and around the state to continue their good work, despite the attorney general’s ruling.
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The Dallas Morning News. May 18, 2016.
State needs to end illegal payments to ex-staffers
It’s a common practice in private business to extend financial packages to certain departing staffers that allow them to stay on the payroll after they’ve packed up and left.
But in the state of Texas for government workers, severance pay is against the law.
That’s why it was troubling to learn that at least three ex-staffers in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office were paid long after they’d stopped doing any work for the state.
And now comes the disturbing news that dozens of former highly paid workers across a wide spectrum of state agencies were paid hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for months after they’d left their jobs.
Paxton and other agency heads say they’re allowed to use “emergency leave” provisions for “good cause” to continue to pay the ex-staffers. But that sort of pay is supposed to be for real emergencies - like family deaths and health issues - and for employees who are returning to work.
Take the Teacher Retirement System. It doled out $235,000 in unworked hours. An ex-investment manager there received pay for four months to the tune of $58,000 after she’d left.
And that’s just a single department amid myriad departments.
Unacceptable.
Gov. Greg Abbott should call for a full accounting to end this practice. Sen. Jane Nelson of Flower Mound and Sen. Royce West of Dallas have vowed to crack down on the leave misuse, which apparently has been going on for years, but it would help for the governor to drive the reforms home.
So why has the practice been allowed to occur for so long? Chalk it up to political backscratching: “Sorry, we have to let you go but here’s some extra money to soften the blow in hopes you’ll go away quietly.”
It’s this political backscratching that has so infuriated the electorate, giving rise to anti-establishment protest campaigns. Ironically, Paxton is the beneficiary of just such a protest campaign, yet he perpetuates the very sort of political backscratching he rails against.
Surely this money could be put to better - and legal - use. After all, these sorts of expenditures do nothing to close the persistent inequities in state pay.
The News’ analysis showed that ex-employees were paid at least 5,248 unworked hours, hours that could be better spent elsewhere - say, hiring enough caseworkers in the besieged CPS agency to save the lives of abused and abandoned children.
Through an aide, Paxton has defended his decision to pay his departing staffers by calling it a “compassionate” way to continue to pay people “who worked tirelessly” for the state. And then he’s consistently dodged questions to justify the payments.
You’d think the state’s top law enforcement official, of all people, would be eager to show how he’s following the law. We urge him and his colleagues to do so now.
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Austin American-Statesman. May 16, 2016.
Texas GOP agitation over transgender restrooms is a trip back in time
At the time critics called the president’s executive order “revolutionary and politically reckless.” National polls showed that his “civil rights” program was wildly unpopular. State leaders in southern states railed against his executive overreach. They insisted that following the executive order would make Americans fundamentally unsafe.
The year was 1948. The president was Harry S. Truman. His order began the slow and painful process of systematically desegregating the nation’s military and is credited with helping to break down racial segregation in all facets of American life.
In the months prior to issuing his famous orders, known as Executive Orders 9980 and 9981, Truman made a special address to Congress:
“. We must protect our civil rights so that by providing all our people with the maximum enjoyment of personal freedom and personal opportunity we shall be a stronger nation - stronger in our leadership, stronger in our moral position, stronger in the deeper satisfactions of a united citizenry.”
The recent temper tantrum by Texas state leaders over President Obama’s instructions to schools about accommodating transgender students is strikingly reminiscent to the outcry generated in response to the federal government’s march to equality during the Civil Rights Era.
The federal directive specified that under the Title IX federal civil rights law, schools must treat a student - using proper pronouns and names, for example - consistent with the student’s gender identity. Schools cannot require transgender students to produce a medical diagnosis or a birth certificate or other identification document, nor force them to use bathrooms inconsistent with that identity.
Gov. Greg Abbott has indicated that he is interested in introducing a law similar to the one in North Carolina that requires transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates. He told thousands at the GOP convention earlier this month:
“Obama is turning bathrooms into courtroom issues,” Abbott told thousands of delegates at Dallas’ convention center. “I want you to know, I am working with the governor of North Carolina, and we are going to fight back.”
Cries of “blackmail” and labeling the President a “bully” is the best the likes of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton could muster. They say they would rather do without federal funding - which pays for books, lunches for the state’s poorest children, early childhood education, special education services, tuition-assistance and educational programming for at-risk groups.
Never mind that it is Patrick who chose to meddle in the decisions of the Fort Worth School District, whose superintendent acted to clarify rules that have been part of the district’s policy since 2012.
Never mind that Patrick’s concern about the “vivid vigor that every 15-year-old boy has” is tantamount to the “boys will be boys” defense for sexual assault of all kinds.
And never mind that sexual assault is not about sexual attraction, it is about power over the victim regardless of gender.
Conservatives would like to draw an imaginary line between the guiding principles of the Civil Rights Era and the extension of rights to the LBGT community. It cannot be done. This country does not discriminate based on inherent traits. And the fact that the country is now agitating for rules that have been in place for years is proof that this is about political gamesmanship, not protecting or education our children.
Truman was not the last president to leverage what authority he had outside of Congress to urge the states to clean up their record on civil rights. Much has been comparing Obama’s performance to Truman’s legacy. This latest chapter on civil rights will only add to the case.
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The (Brazoria County) Facts. May 15, 2016.
State again wresting decision-making from voters
Republicans in Washington insist nothing be done to give a fair hearing to President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court because the voters are the ones who deserve a say in the matter.
Republicans in Austin have a different take on the role of voters. When locals go to the polls and make a decision on an issue those in the Texas Capitol don’t like, the elected leaders will simply overrule them.
Voters in Austin decided May 7 to mandate drivers for ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft undergo background checks that include fingerprinting. The companies spent millions trying to defeat the measure, then pulled out of the city when it passed.
In the aftermath of the vote, several Republicans with some sway have criticized the vote and instead are pushing for statewide regulation of the services, which undoubtedly would be far more industry-friendly than that adopted in Austin.
“This is what happens with liberalism - the government wins and the people lose,” Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush posted on Facebook, using an unusual word choice for what many would call “democracy.” Senate Transportation Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, promises to take up the issue in the next legislative session that starts in January.
While Austin certainly is a blue dot in a blood-red state, it would seem the insistence on fingerprinting of drivers is more about the safety of customers than carrying out any sort of liberal agenda. The measure was rooted in widespread reports in the city and elsewhere of ride-hailing drivers with questionable personal histories and those perpetrating real crimes.
A study of Austin Police Department records by KXAN-TV found seven complaints claiming sexual assault by drivers between April and August 2015. During that same time period, three taxi drivers also were accused. Those numbers are not outrageous, but if residents of Austin believe including fingerprints on background checks makes them even lower, they should have that right.
It’s what democracy is supposed to be about, after all.
As we have pointed out before, a state government that rails against Washington mandates and being allowed to decide things for itself doesn’t seem to think that same requirement should apply to anyone else. State lawmakers overrode an anti-fracking law, bans on plastic grocery bags and other local initiatives put into place by people at the ballot box. If states should have autonomy from the federal government, to some logical measure, cities should have autonomy from the dictums of the state.
Austin voters were well within their rights as Texans and Americans to decide the best approach to keep them safe. Uber and Lyft were within their rights as corporations to decide to take their business elsewhere if they didn’t like Austin’s rules. And the state would be right to listen to the will of the people instead of deciding they know better.
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Waco Tribune-Herald. May 22, 2016.
Baylor legal moves in sexual assault saga raise questions about Texas AG’s opinion
Bowing to the cherished principle that transparency makes for better government, better institutions and better communities, state lawmakers last year overwhelmingly passed a law requiring private university and college police departments to release upon request information such as crime reports, just as city police departments must do. We saw this as a triumph for public safety.
One idea behind this warmly welcomed state law was that current and prospective students of private colleges and universities, their parents and surrounding communities have every right to know just how safe these campuses are. Now it appears much of this law is in serious doubt, judging from inaction by State Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office aiding Baylor University in what more and more of the public are concluding is a massive and self-destructive cover-up concerning its handling of sexual assaults involving students and, in some cases, athletes. Allegations range from indifferent handling of student victims to feeble probing of complaints.
It’s another dismal chapter in a messy saga revolving around some Baylor football players; allegations against them of sexual assault (with two cases so far yielding convictions); and, just as serious, questions about Baylor’s systemic protocol for addressing such incidents. Baylor’s fight for secrecy in all this has only allowed victims and other critics to compose some damning (and largely unchallenged) narratives about Baylor. And that’s sucking yet others into the quicksand.
In response to a request by the Tribune-Herald for all reports received by the Baylor Police Department regarding sexual assaults and improper sexual conduct and Baylor’s resistance to this request, Paxton’s office said last week that, yes, Baylor must release portions of some reports because of the Texas Legislature’s new law. But it left open questions of whether Baylor must release other portions of reports. Bizarrely, the opinion doesn’t sharply differentiate any of this.
Because Baylor claims some records must be withheld under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the university did not submit actual examples for Paxton’s office to consider, the state attorney general’s office simply didn’t rule on them. At least, so Paxton’s office says in its muddled May 17 opinion. In fact, the attorney general’s office suggests its own inspection of documents supposedly covered by FERPA is inappropriate. If so, such deference to federal authority by that office must rank as a first, given how many times the attorney general has challenged the feds.
If this opinion were a student paper, we’d give it an F, though an “Incomplete” might be more appropriate. Did the state attorney general’s office fail the public and an inquiring press by failing to show due diligence and telling Baylor straight out to submit examples of what it believes falls under FERPA guidelines? Or did it do Baylor a big favor by leaving it more than a little wiggle room to hide information?
It gets worse. Baylor sought to evade state law by insisting that these documents aren’t just law enforcement reports covered by the Public Information Act but materials used by Baylor’s Judicial Affairs Office and Title IX office and thus off limits. This rationale is so utterly absurd it ought to stand as a supreme embarrassment to the very eminent scholars at Baylor Law School who we presume see through this legal argument.
The fact the attorney general’s office has now made vague a new and very straightforward law feeds one more damaging narrative, casually noted by a lawmaker’s staffer who remarked to us that Attorney General Ken Paxton is a Baylor grad. As this scandal spreads like a toxic cloud beyond Baylor, it is gradually and surely claiming many others as complicit in this ill-advised strategy, regardless of whether they truly are.
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