Tag Archives: illegal voters

State news

Hit the road, Mr. Secretary

So long, David Whitley. Don’t let the door hit you in the … whatever.

Whitley has resigned as Texas secretary of state after serving for less than half a year. His brief tenure as the state’s chief election officer will be remembered for one thing only: his botched effort to purge Texas voter rolls of ineligible voters, which turned into an embarrassing revelation that those so-called illegal voters were actually quite legal.

As the Texas Tribune reports, gubernatorial nominees usually sail straight through the Texas Senate. Whitley didn’t make the grade; he never was confirmed by the Senate. So, when the Senate gaveled itself adjourned today, Whitley had to leave. So, he did.

Whitley got caught up in the tempest over whether the state’s voter rolls were filled with illegal immigrants. His office flagged the names of thousands of Texans who were thought to be voting illegally. It turned out to be, um, false. The alarm turned out to be mostly false.

Whitley was left trying to explain why his office got it so wrong.

Senate Democrats stood firm in their opposition to Whitley and given the Senate’s two-thirds rule required to confirm nominations to executive positions, Whitley’s nomination by Gov. Greg Abbott was doomed.

Well, the governor will now look for another secretary of state.

My hunch is that the next one will not try the kind of stunt that torpedoed David Whitley.

political news, State news

Two-thirds rule likely to scuttle key Texas appointment

The Texas Senate operates on a rule that is designed ostensibly to promote bipartisanship.

It’s the two-thirds rule, which requires 21 of the Senate’s 31 members to approve legislation — and appointments.

However, all 12 of the Senate’s Democrats are going to oppose the nomination of David Whitley as the next Texas secretary of state. That leaves him with just 19 votes, all of which will come from Senate Republicans.

It seems that Whitley, who’s been acting as secretary of state, blew it when his office “flagged” several thousand voters who were thought to be illegal residents of Texas. It turns out that many of those flagged were quite legal. One of them happened to be a key member of a Senate Democrat’s staff.

Can we hear an “oops”?

Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Whitley to be the state’s top elections officer this past year, but the Legislature was not in session, meaning that the Senate hadn’t yet formally approved his nomination. With the Senate’s 12 Democratic members now on record as opposing his appointment, it appears that Abbott might have to look for someone else to run the state’s election system.

The Secretary of State’s Office committed a fairly embarrassing cluster flip with the flagging of those names. It sought to purge the system of what it said were illegal voters, only to determine that the list of flagged voters was significantly inaccurate.

Abbott said he still supports Whitley fully, which is what one would expect him to say.

I’ll offer this bit of advice: David Whitley needs to bow out; the governor needs to find another nominee. Then we can get back to the task of running our state elections instead of looking for bogeymen where they likely don’t exist.

Yes, the Texas Senate’s two-thirds rule works.

political news, State news

Texas AG won’t probe voter roll SNAFU . . . imagine that

Something suspicious occurred when the Texas secretary of state flagged the names of 95,000 Texans on the belief they might be non-citizens who voted illegally.

It turns out many of them — particularly in five of the state’s largest counties — were citizens after all. They all voted legally. The state erred dramatically.

How could that happen? Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said his office won’t launch an investigation into what occurred. I wish the AG would rethink that option and look deeply into it.

The erroneous flagging has drawn plenty of barbs from Latino groups and others who believe the state might have been profiling voters simply because of their last names.

A large number of those flagged voters should not have been singled out.

There’s just something about this matter that doesn’t smell right to me. It has the stench of prejudice and a premature jumping to conclusions about those who comprise a certain minority group in Texas.

According to the Texas Tribune, county officials so far have discovered “at least 20,000” individuals targeted by the state were eligible to vote. Will there be more of them?

I am one Texan who wants to know how and why these individuals were flagged by the top state elections official.

national news, political news

Honeymoon? What honeymoon?

Talk about rocky rollouts.

Presidents of the United States take command in what we call a “peaceful transition” of power. It’s supposed to be seamless. It’s intended to miss nary a beat. One guy steps off the inaugural podium as the former president and the new guy takes over as if he’s been there all along.

Then we have the transition from Barack H. Obama to Donald J. Trump.

What a mess!

As near as I can tell, the former president kept his end of the bargain, seeking to provide all the necessary support, advice and counsel to the new president.

What’s happened? Oh … let’s see.

* The new president issued an executive order that calls for a temporary ban on refugees coming here from seven mostly Muslim countries; then a federal judge strikes it down and his decision is upheld by a federal appeals court. Up next? The U.S. Supreme Court, more than likely.

* Now we have the national security adviser, Michael Flynn, quitting over allegations that he engaged in improper negotiations with Russians regarding sanctions that the Obama administration had leveled against them. The problem is threefold: Flynn might have violated federal law by talking out of turn to the Russians before Trump took office; he apparently lied to the vice president about what he said; and Trump needs to reveal whether he knew about the talks as they were occurring — or even whether he sanctioned them!

* A few Trump Cabinet appointees are being confirmed by narrow margins in the Senate. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was confirmed, in fact, by a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Pence.

* There are reports of civil servants sweating bullets about their futures within the Trump administration.

* Oh, and the president apparently engaged in a free-wheeling discussion the other day — in the open, in front of unauthorized personnel — with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about what the United States might do in response to a North Korean missile launch.

* Trump keeps repeating the phony mantra about alleged voter fraud by illegal immigrants casting ballots for Hillary Clinton. Proof? He hasn’t produced anything!

It ain’t supposed to start like this, man.

The military uses a popular acronym to describe certain circumstances: FUBAR; the cleaned-up version is translated to mean “fouled up beyond all recognition.”

There you have it.

national news, political news

FEC to Trump: Show us the proof of fraud

A federal elections commissioner has called Donald J. Trump’s bluff.

Good for her!

The challenge has come from Ellen Weintraub, a commissioner from New Hampshire, who is demanding that the president of the United States provide proof of allegations he has made about “widespread voter fraud” in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has said “millions” of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton, resulting in her hefty popular vote margin over the actual “winner” of the presidential election.

In so doing, Trump has impugned the integrity of the U.S. electoral process, not to mention that of state and local elections officials throughout the nation.

He hasn’t produced a shred, a scintilla, a scant hint of evidence to back up what he has alleged.

It’s time for Trump to produce the goods. Weintraub said Trump has in effect accused elections officials of committing “thousands” of felony crimes.

According to The Hill: “The President has issued an extraordinarily serious and specific charge,” added Weintraub, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush. “Allegations of this magnitude cannot be ignored. I therefore call upon President Trump to immediately share his evidence with the public and with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities so that his allegations may be investigated promptly and thoroughly.”

Well, Mr. President? Play your hand, sir.