“Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong.

-GK Chesterton

 

Police Union Warns Houstonians the City Is Not Safe

Union leaders blame staffing shortages and too many suspected criminals being allowed to walk free.

Emily Medeiros | April 23, 2024

Houston Police Officers’ Union leaders are warning the public that the City of Houston isn’t safe due to police staffing shortages and the city allowing suspected criminals to walk free.

The union’s executive director, Ray Hunt, told Fox News that he’s never seen so many “suspected murderers and capital murderers who are walking the streets of Houston out on multiple bonds.”

“I would not let my wife or my kids walk down the streets of Houston at midnight under any circumstances,” said Hunt. “It is not safe in major cities in 2024, and it’s not safe here.”

Hunt, along with the union’s President Douglas Griffith, is sounding the alarm as the Houston Police Department struggles to recruit and retain officers. 

“Who in the heck wants to be a police officer in 2024?” questioned Hunt. “When everything that they’re doing is going to be second-guessed by their body-worn camera that someone can watch three or four times to determine whether or not that officer made the right split-second decision. I don’t know who would want to do that. I could not encourage any of my family to come be a police officer in 2024 with the situation that’s going on.”

Griffith pointed to a Sam Houston State University report from 2014 that showed the Houston Police Department had a shortage of 1,500 officers in the city. 

“In 2014, it said if Houston was staffed like Chicago, we would have 9,602 sworn officers. At that time, we had about 5,600 – 4,000 short. Now we have just over 5,000. We’ve already lost officers since then,” explained Hunt.

Due to the shortage, Griffith also pointed out that officers won’t be able to investigate every case they come across. 

“A survey of investigative division commanders revealed excessively high numbers of cases with leads that were not investigated in 2013 due to lack of personnel,” said Hunt. “This was 2014 they’re writing this. For burglary and theft, nearly 15,000 cases were suspended – 3,000 assault cases in the homicide division, 3,000 hit-and-run cases for that year. They knew that. Everyone knew that we were short-handed, and now everyone wants to say, ‘Wow, these officers are lazy. They’re not doing your job.’ Completely untrue.” 

Griffith also signaled that the court system is “not doing their job.”

“Their contention is that we can’t hold somebody. We must give everybody a bond, yes, the first time. Once they violate that bond, they can be held in jail until they go to court again. And we get people on six, seven, eight, nine bonds at one time. And that’s a problem that we must fix in the courts.”

Other cities across Texas have also been experiencing police staffing shortages. 

In November, Texas Scorecard reported on the Dallas Police Department experiencing longer response times to 911 calls, as a result of staffing shortages. It had been reported that the Dallas PD was maintaining fewer than 3,200 officers, while a city analysis showed a municipality the size of Dallas should have a staffing level of around 4,000 officers. 

The City of Austin has also had staffing shortages, resulting in citizens experiencing longer wait times due to the “Defund the Police” movement in 2020 and the Austin City Council’s vote to massively decrease the department’s budget.  

​

 

The Docket: A Case of Historic Magnitude

 

Matt Stringer

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While the focus of The Docket has been to report on significant cases arising out of Texas, one case was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) this week that will undeniably have significant implications on our constitutional structure — and after listening to the nearly three hours of oral arguments on Thursday, well, I would be remiss not to give my best attempt at breaking down the basics of what’s going on and what it means for Texas.

Trump v. United States is an interlocutory appeal to the nation’s highest court from the trial of former President Donald Trump on several indictments brought by a federal special prosecutor alleging Trump sought to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The charges are fraud and conspiracy-related and allege that certain actions he took after the November election results were criminal, such as asking state legislatures to conduct investigations into the election results or having Republican elector nominees stand by to cast ballots in case the results were overturned in court. It also asks whether he obstructed Congress’s role in certifying the Electoral College ballots.

The question before SCOTUS is: “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

Before I get down to explaining what both sides are arguing, I should preface my explanation by saying there are an incredible number of nuanced details being raised in this case; the parties are citing case law going back to Marbury v. Madison, and have discussed historical instances ranging from President Ulysses S. Grant sending federal troops to southern states to ensure the integrity of federal elections after the Civil War to whether President Barack Obama can be charged for ordering drone strikes that killed Americans overseas — the confirmation of any number of which by the court will have major implications. The second thing I’d like to say is that this is my best 10,000-foot view of the incredibly complex case being argued.

OK, let’s proceed.

Attorneys for Trump argue former presidents enjoy total immunity from prosecution for actions taken in their official capacity while in office.

“Could President George W. Bush have been sent to prison for obstructing an official proceeding or allegedly lying to Congress to induce war in Iraq? Could President Obama be charged with murder for killing U.S. citizens abroad by drone strike? Could President Biden someday be charged with unlawfully inducing immigrants to enter the country illegally for his border policies? The answer to all these questions is no,” Trump defense attorney John Sauer told the justices, adding further, “Prosecuting the president for his official acts is an innovation with no foothold in history or tradition and incompatible with our constitutional structure.”

This led the justices to pose a battery of hypothetical questions to Sauer, exploring the question of how to distinguish an official act by the president for which he enjoys immunity versus a personal act that he may be prosecuted for.

These hypotheticals ranged from the president ordering the assassination of his political opponent to ordering the military to stage a coup, bringing it back to the relevant allegation — that Trump committed fraud to overturn an election.

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson asked whether immunity from prosecution would embolden future presidents to not follow the law. Sauer responded that checks and balances in the constitution prevent such a thing, including impeachment by Congress. He also explained their position that once convicted of impeachment, an ousted president could then be criminally prosecuted on charges relating to the impeachment conviction.

He also pointed to quotes from Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and George Washington that he says indicate the framers were more concerned with preventing rivalrous factions from using threats of criminal prosecution to chill the actions of the political foes, as opposed to a chief executive avoiding accountability for breaking the law.

Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned whether subjecting presidents to prosecution will result in future presidents routinely “pardoning” themselves before leaving office, although he admitted the legality of self-pardon has never been resolved.

The State of Texas joined 22 other states in an amicus brief led by the State of Alabama arguing SCOTUS should block the prosecution based on facts that indicate the prosecution is politically motivated, and that the public cannot have confidence the charges were not brought to influence the 2024 election.

“The United States claims that time is of the essence. Yet for over two years following the actions alleged in the indictment, the United States declined to prosecute President Trump. Then something changed. Since August 1, 2023, the prosecution has been relentless in its demand to try President Trump ‘as promptly as possible,’” the brief states.

“To say the least, the timing is suspicious, and it warrants explanation. But the United States has never offered one…It should go without saying that timing a criminal prosecution to influence an election is no way to protect democracy, and it is not a legitimate end of law enforcement.”

Some of my favorite court watchers have speculated after hearing the arguments on Thursday that there is likely a majority on the court who will ultimately vote to establish some multi-prong metric by which courts may determine what is or is not an official act by the president, and from there determine criminal liability.

While none of us can peer into the future to see how the court will rule, there is no doubt the ruling will have a major impact on the interests of Texans. For the roughly 1.8 million Texas Republican Primary voters who just selected Trump as their 2024 presidential nominee, the decision could impact the November election. On a larger perspective, the decision will impact executive power in the federal government as well as constitutional checks and balances that affect all Texans and Americans for generations to come.

U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses Request to Establish Universal Mail-In Voting in Texas

The petition was filed back in December, attempting to revive the dormant lawsuit.

 

(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

An attempt to revive the Texas Democratic Party’s 2020 challenge to the state’s mail-in ballot restrictions was denied this week by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from Joseph Cascino, Marie Sansing, and Brenda Li Garcia — residents of Texas who do not qualify for mail-in voting under current law. They filed their petition back in December.

In Texas anyone may vote early in person, but only those aged 65 or older, disabled, or out of their county of residence during the election may vote by mail.

The trio of petitioners argued that their right to vote is impinged by those limitations and that the 26th Amendment bars any such division of classification between voters.

The case was originally made in 2020 by the Texas Democratic Party, which secured a temporary victory in the trial court. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, and the Supreme Court denied an appeal of that reversal.

Represented by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Secretary of State Jane Nelson countered, “Some States endorse no-excuse absentee voting; others require in-person voting with narrow exceptions.”

“This diversity of approaches reflects a healthy federalism and accords with the uncontroversial notion that ‘government must play an active role in structuring elections.’”

The court did not issue any opinion or reasoning with the dismissal.

“Many states irresponsibly and unconstitutionally changed their voting policies prior to the 2020 election,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said of the dismissal. “Fortunately, we did things differently in Texas: we fought hard to uphold Texas law and defend the integrity of elections in this State.”

Texas did change its voting policy during the 2020 election — Gov. Greg Abbott used disaster powers to unilaterally extend early voting by a week — and while no ruling declared it unconstitutional, the extension was done without input from the Legislature, which was the very contention of Paxton’s 2020 election suit against other states who similarly changed voting laws through executive order.

Two state senators, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, then-Texas GOP Chair Allen West, and a bevy of then-current or former state representatives sued over the action. The Texas Supreme Court denied their motion for an emergency stay as Paxton was named as one of the attorneys for Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs.

Another argument that was denied back in 2020 was that the threat of contracting COVID-19 constituted a disability under the state Election Code; it was also ultimately rejected.

The practical onus for the original lawsuit was Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins’ unsolicited mailing of absentee ballot applications to all voters. That action was halted by the Texas Supreme Court in October 2020.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s latest action makes clear it has no intention of litigating that question, leaving it to the state’s legislative process.

Texas Officials Challenge Biden Administration’s New Title IX Rule Protecting ‘Gender Identity’

Following changes to Title IX, state elected officials are urging the Texas Education Agency to ignore the rule.

• CAMERON ABRAMS

 

Photo by Zach Lucero/Unsplash.

The Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) issued a new Title IX rule that includes changes to how federal civil rights law protects “discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”

A key provision in the rule change now “Recognizes that preventing a person from participating in a recipient’s education program or activity consistent with their gender identity subjects that person to more than de minimis harm.”

The Human Rights Campaign said the new rule will “protect LGBTQ+ students” in addition to reversing “Trump-era changes to Title IX that limited federal funded educational institutions’ obligation to address sexual harassment and assault and clarifies protections for pregnant and parenting students.”

“For more than 50 years, Title IX has promised an equal opportunity to learn and thrive in our nation’s schools free from sex discrimination,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “These final regulations build on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”

Title IX is a federal program that instructs educational institutions that receive federal funds from the DOE to carry out their educational programs “in a nondiscriminatory manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity.” Included in the issue areas of Title IX are athletics, financial assistance programs, admissions, recruitment, and sex-based harassment investigations.

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a letter Monday to President Biden, saying, “Texas will not adhere to the new rules.”

“I am instructing the Texas Education Agency to ignore your illegal dictate.”

Following the Title IX rule changes, Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) penned a letter to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath.

“As Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency, I am calling on you to promptly direct all superintendents in Texas to ignore the proposed changes to Title IX,” wrote Cain.

“Additionally, I am calling on all Texas superintendents to publicly commit to disregarding this directive from the Biden Administration.”

The Texas Freedom Caucus followed with its own letter to Morath expressing similar concerns, stating they “urge” him to “instruct all Texas superintendents to disregard these proposed alterations.”

Other state governors and education chiefs in Florida, Louisiana, Montana, and South Carolina have issued similar disregard directives.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has also sued the Biden administration and the DOE over the Title IX rule change.

“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” wrote Paxton in a press release.

“This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”

The complaint argues the DOE “has attempted to effect radical social change in our Nation’s schools” and that the new Title IX rule “walks back many of the constitutional safeguards issued by the Trump Administration to ensure that students accused of harassment have access to a fair hearing.”

America First Legal (AFL) is serving as co-counsel in Paxton’s suit against the Biden Administration.

“This rule violates existing federal law, ignores the Constitution, and denies women the protections that Title IX was intended to afford them,” AFL stated in a press release. “The Biden Administration has exceeded its authority and radically distorted the meaning intended by Congress when the law was made.”