Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Prodigious

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hurricane harvey
Shelter at Golden Acres Baptist Church in Pasadena, TX
ed-hubbard
Ed Hubbard

That is the only word that keeps coming to my mind as I try to understand what is still unfolding in the Houston area. I have lived here since 1983 and seen hurricanes like Alicia and Ike, and tropical storms like Allison, but the speed at which this storm developed, and its scope, was beyond what anyone could imagine, let alone what we had seen before. Even as the storm strengthened throughout last Friday, and we received reports of the potential rainfall amounts, such reports seemed ridiculously beyond comprehension. Well, we are now surrounded by it and it is still difficult to comprehend.

For those who are criticizing the decision of local leaders not to order a mandatory evacuation, I know emotions are running high, but please get a grip and stop. Anyone who has lived here long enough to have lived through these storms, including Rita, know that this storm occurred too quickly to allow for a large scale evacuation. Most of our freeways are designed to flood during large-scale storms in order to augment the watershed runoff. I cannot even imagine the loss of life that could have occurred had our neighbors been stranded in traffic jams, like they were during the Rita evacuation, when the roads began to flood. There simply was not enough time to organize and administer a phased evacuation as happened in the lead-up to Ike.

Instead of criticizing local leaders, I want to praise all of the public officials, first responders and neighbors throughout this entire region, who are helping to rescue and shelter our neighbors in need. For those of you who may read this who do not reside in this area, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during the days, weeks, months and years ahead. It will take a long time to get back on our feet and we will need all the help we can get—from each other and from others.

As for my family, we are spread-out over the entire area, but everyone so far is safe. My wife and I are still safe and dry, because our house sits on one of the highest elevations in our village—but there is flooding all around our village, so it will be days before we can probably drive out of our community. We are the lucky ones, who for some reason have so far been blessed. Again, please keep our neighbors in your thoughts and prayers.

Can We Regain Our Sanity and Our Society?

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Charlottesville

ed-hubbard
Ed Hubbard

I think way too much has been said and written over the last week about the Charlottesville riot, its political aftermath, and the ongoing movement toward removing public commemorations to persons who served in the Confederate military during the Civil War (as well as for slaveholders, generally).  Such is the nature of our 24/7 information cycle, which never gives us a chance to escape the immediacy of such events and issues in order to actually think about them constructively.  As a result, I, and many others with whom I’ve been talking recently, feel we are caught in a spiral of public insanity that we can’t seem to escape.

But we need to escape it and begin to rebuild our society—now.  Toward that end, I want to briefly share some thoughts with you.

First, every community in our Republic has the right to decide whether and whom it will honor in its public spaces with road names and signs, building and park names, plaques, statues, and any other form of commemoration, including the right to change or remove those commemorations.  These are decisions for each community to make; and while those of us from outside the community may have a right to offer our opinions about proposed choices, but, in the end, we should respect each community’s decision.

Second, though I respect the decisions being made to remove statues and other forms of commemorations of Confederate soldiers from public venues, I fear, as with so many actions today, that those who are promoting such blanket attacks on these monuments are being way to draconian and are actually destroying the full, rich history of their communities—both the good and the bad.  For instance, for every Nathan Bedford Forest, who never really embraced the post-Civil War peace and who helped form the KKK, there were thousands of men who returned from that war to rebuild their communities and society.  Men like Robert E. Lee, who spent his final years promoting reconciliation and building a respected liberal arts university.  These men re-pledged allegiance to the Union, had their citizenship restored, and built the foundations of their towns and cities—foundations we live with today.  Were all their choices perfect?  Of course not—and we should never honor the Jim Crow decisions and actions of the post-war period.  But, neither should we ignore the full story of the positive foundations these men created for the communities that exist today.  These men were not perfect humans—they were just like you and me.

Third, in many ways, our public roads, buildings and parks serve as a living museum of each community and its evolving story.  Ideally, street and building names, plaques and statues help tell that story—and as the community grows, so should its monuments and commemorations.  If the presence of some of these commemorations (e.g., the Confederate flag) is so offensive that, rather than tell the story it wounds the community in way that doesn’t allow it to heal from the mistakes of its past, then, by all means remove the offensive monuments.  But, let’s use some discretion to try to expand and use our public museums to live with and learn from our past, rather than erase it.  To completely erase all of the men who served in the Confederacy from the evolving history of our communities is overkill.

Fourth, it should go without saying that the groups that obtained the permit to protest in Charlottesville last weekend (self-proclaimed neo-Nazi’s, KKK members, white nationalists, etc.), and those who participated with those groups in that protest, promote detestable ideas and deserve all of the criticisms and condemnations they have received.  There was a time when even the thought of such groups coming together sparked immediate public ridicule, either through biting humor (e.g., scenes from Blazing Saddles showing such people ridiculously enlisting to join the attack on Rock Ridge) or public condemnation (e.g., the widespread condemnation of the Nazi march on Skokie, Illinois); but there always seemed to be a consensus that our First Amendment protected the public advocacy even such vile idiocy.  Violent confrontation of such idiots is not the answer, and Charlottesville is evidence of what we used to know—such confrontation may make the counter-protesters and their supporters feel vindicated, but it almost always spirals into greater violence because some idiot will get provoked to take the violence to another, deadly level.  Violence is never the answer to speech we abhor—more speech and debate is the only answer, and the answer that our First Amendment promotes.  Remember, violent revolt against Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia (or even Putin’s Russia or Maduro’s Venezuela) may have been, or may be, the only vehicle left for a society under the grip of a madman or madwoman, but those societies didn’t (and don’t) have a First Amendment—we do.

Fifth, more constructive speech and debate is needed today; but what we don’t need is more of the ideological yelling and screaming that we experience on a 24/7 basis through cable TV, Twitter, and Facebook.  Ultimately, the speech and debate that the First Amendment protects presumes that the people engaged in such activity will exercise their God-given capacities to think and listen before they speak.  Unfortunately, too few people are truly thinking and listening today; they are just reacting and blurting in 140 characters or less.  If we are ever to regain our sanity, we need to re-engage our own faculties to think and listen.  And that goes not only for our Blurter-in-Chief in Washington, but for everyone else who blindly resists him because they think he is either the world’s biggest moron, or the re-incarnation of Attila the Hun, or both (or who blindly support him—for whatever reason).

Finally, I recommend that we all resolve to regain our own sanity.  To do this, let’s try to carve out some regular block of time to shut-off the 24/7 noise created by TV, the Internet and our Smartphones.  Then, use some of that time to read or think, and some of that time to engage with people—actually living, breathing people.  As we do this, maybe we can learn to think and listen again, then to talk and debate, and just maybe to rebuild the relationships needed to have a working, sane community and society.

The Truth about the Nursing Home Voting Law and Voter Fraud

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voter fraud
Click picture to read ‘Group warns of ‘vote harvesting’ at nursing homes’
ed-hubbard
Ed Hubbard

I was shocked to learn from my friend and colleague, Alan Vera, of the reversal and repeal of the nursing-home voting law (designed to prevent voter fraud) by the House during the current special session.  Now, having read this article on the website for the Austin American-Statesman, Texas Two Step: House stiffens penalties for nursing home ballot fraud while repealing a bipartisan solution, I think the public record needs to be corrected about how this bill evolved to passage during the 2017 Regular Session.

I have served as the Legal Counsel to the Harris County Republican Party since July, 2014 (this post is not an official statement by or on behalf of the HCRP, but instead, contains my own personal statements and opinions).  In that capacity, I have worked closely with Alan Vera and with our county election officials during each election cycle since (and including) the 2014 General Election,  Immediately after that election, Alan discussed with me reports he had heard about abuse of mail-in ballot applications and voting at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in Harris County, across the state, and across the country, and he introduced me to the law that Wisconsin had adopted to address this issue.  Convinced of its merit, I worked with Alan to prepare an initial draft of a similar law for Texas.

Simply put, this bill changed the process from one that created the conditions by which persons other than the voter could fill-out the applications, obtain access to the ballots and “vote” for the voter, to a process whereby an election judge and representatives of each political party met with and witnessed the vote of each voter to assure that they wanted to vote, had the capacity to vote, and were casting their own vote.  Although the process of recruiting and training such election officials would add some burden to local governments, the financial impact would be minimal while the benefit to the integrity of the voting process and the protection of vulnerable voters would be priceless.

Prior to the 2105 Regular Session, I discussed this proposal with a GOP member of the Texas Senate and worked with his office to prepare a draft of such a bill.  Unfortunately, the draft prepared by the Legislative Counsel and the Senator’s office was not completed in time to introduce the bill in 2015; but Alan and I continued to work with the draft over the next year to have it ready to introduce in the 2017 Session.  In the meantime, we obtained further input from our local election officials, the Secretary of State’s office, and lawyers with the Republican Party of Texas to improve the language of the bill.

This draft was circulated to members of the Harris County legislative delegation in 2016, and Rep. Oliverson enthusiastically supported the bill and agreed to sponsor it in the House.  Additionally, Rep. Schofield supported our effort and prepared an alternative draft for introduction.  Our local election officials, and a counsel for the RPT, Eric Opiela, supported our effort and worked with Alan and Rep. Oliverson, as well as Rep. Schofield to improve the bill both before and after it was introduced.  Eventually, Senator Joan Huffman threw her support behind the bill in the Senate, and worked with Alan and Eric to further improve the bill.  Prior to that time, no Democrat had participated in the preparation of the proposed bill.

However, through the efforts of these legislators, some local election officials, Alan and Eric, the bill quickly drew bi-partisan support because the corruption of the mail-in ballot process at nursing homes and long-term care facilities apparently had impacted some Democratic primaries races.  In fact, the only real opposition to the bill during its movement through the legislature came from certain county election administrators who either did not understand, or chose to ignore, how the law would work, and how it had been successfully implemented in Wisconsin—in a bi-partisan way.  These people proved to be impervious to any reasonable discussion of the merits of the bill, and simply folded their arms and stomped their feet in opposition—they obviously preferred the status quo rather than have to do a little bit more recruitment and training of election volunteers in their counties.

And, as an aside, it is nonsense to believe that this law would benefit one party (Democrats) over another (Republicans) in the General Election.  In fact, the evidence in Wisconsin has shown that the Republican Party has grown in that state, and won more state and local elections, after implementation of the law (which makes sense when you consider that the GOP usually polls better in the over-65 age group than the Democratic Party).

Unfortunately, some people have chosen to give credit to the rhetoric used by some Democratic supporters to persuade their colleagues to support the bill, rather than actually learn who drafted the law, why the law was drafted, and to see and understand the merits of the law that was passed.  These critics have elevated the sausage-making, partisan rhetoric during the heat of the legislative process to gospel, and then used such rhetoric as an excuse to kill this landmark law.  This is the gutless legislative equivalent of being scared by your own shadow, and says more about the bankrupt views of these critics than it does of the law they want to kill.

The bi-partisan support for and passage of this bill, which would have addressed a real voter-fraud problem acknowledged by both parties and public officials, should have been a proud moment for our state and our elected officials.  Instead, it has been hi-jacked and repealed by those who now must own and defend a status quo that takes advantage of some of our state’s most vulnerable voters.

I want to thank Rep. Oliverson, Rep. Roberts, and Senator Huffman, as well as all of those legislators from both sides of the aisle who bravely supported this bill.  Likewise, the next time someone from our party complains about voter-fraud, Governor Abbott and Rep. Goldman need to take a long look in the mirror and realize they now have endorsed continuation of voter fraud, rather than having embraced a proven way to stop it.

As for the person quoted in the Austin American-Stateman article—Aaron Harris, whoever he is—if Rep. Oliverson or Alan Vera don’t take him up on his offer to debate the merits of this bill, I’ll gladly meet him in any public forum to do so—his position is simply ridiculous.

Open Memo about Health-Care to Our U.S. Senators and GOP members of our Congressional delegation from Texas

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health-care

ed-hubbard
Ed Hubbard

I am sending this memo to each of you, not as a local party official or conservative activist, but as a concerned constituent who has been following the current health-care debate as closely as any other citizen.  It appears that the seven-year long effort to address the Democrat’s ill-conceived health-care albatross is finally reaching a climax and the very complexity of Obamacare is making it difficult for you all to find a consensus as to how to fix the mess the Democrats made.

With all due humility, I ask that you consider a simple approach now:  repeal of Obamacare, effective two years from enactment; and a commitment to create a two-tiered system of private, employer-provided insurance for the employed (with certain basic requirements, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions and continued coverage for dependents), and Medicare for everyone else.  If this system is coupled with fundamental corporate and middle-class tax reform, it could provide the certainty that our private economy needs to sustain the level of economic growth needed to address so many other issues we now face, while making our public health system more efficient and sustainable.

Everyone has discussed and debated how we got to this point, but let’s remember this—too many Americans have structured their lives based on the existence of private insurance when employed, and a social safety net when they are not employed, to create a totally free-market based system now.  However, unlike European countries and other nation-states, the existence of a vast private insurance system has allowed our country to meet defense and security commitments that it could not otherwise afford if it had to underwrite a national single-payer system, while providing the capital for the research, development and delivery of medical practices and medicines that has lead the way to the greatest extension of life-expectancy in human history.  Moreover, the existence of a thriving private-insurance industry provides our private economy with a vast source of capital from premium income for investment and growth, which a single-payer system would extinguish.  In the meantime, though, state budgets have become overburdened by the under-funded Medicaid mandates, and our federal bureaucracy has shown itself to be too incompetent to meet our national commitment to provide even the most basic medical care for veterans, Native Americans and other specific groups.    Simply put, the idea of a single-payer or provider system does not fit the United States, and the United States needs its private insurance industry.

The simple reform plan would be consistent with the institutional competence of our limited federal government, and would provide the framework for a more efficient and effective delivery system for medical care.  This plan would have three basic parts:

  • an employer-provided private insurance market protected by the federal tax code for everyone who is employed, including a pooled market for the self-employed;
  • a means-tested reimbursement structure for the unemployed, the disabled, the poor, the retired, veterans, and Native Americans; and
  • a re-insurance trust fund to underwrite treatment expenses catastrophic illnesses or traumas, that our beyond the ability of the private insurance market to cover.

Both the Medicare and re-insurance trust would be funded through a revised Medicare tax program.  Committing to such a system should be coupled with repeal of Medicaid in its entirety, and closure of the federal VA and Native American hospitals and clinics (though the Defense Department should still maintain a network of hospitals for the treatment of our soldiers), and with the lowering of the corporate tax rate to a flat 15{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} (or lower) rate to provide businesses of all sizes the ability to pay for private insurance plans and remain competitive.  Moreover, state and local governments could still supplement this system through their own re-imbursement or direct-care alternatives, but they would be relieved of the immense financial burden that is sapping their resources to provide for education and other programs within their sphere of responsibility.

I know this is not an ideologically pure free-market system, but we haven’t had that type of system at any time during our lifetimes, and it is too late to change our whole country’s expectations to fit our ideology.  And, of course, the devil would still be in the details of such a system, but at least it would provide a certain plan to debate and implement over the next two years while Obamacare is unwound—and parts of it should draw some bipartisan support, which any program of such reach should have had from the beginning.

Again, this is one citizen’s recommendation—but, if one lonely conservative can describe and recommend such a simple and comprehensive idea, I have to believe you all can get together and finally address the health-care issue.

Reflections on Trump’s Address to Congress and its Challenge

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…If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
…you’ll be a Man, my son!
If, by Rudyard Kipling

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State government are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Federalist 45, James Madison

Ed Hubbard

Those of you who have followed Big Jolly Politics over the years will recognize these quotes, for I have referred to them often in my prior posts. I even chuckled to myself when my friend and proprietor of this website, David Jennings recently changed the dedication to Big Jolly Politics to the phrase, “because we have lost our collective mind,” which seemed to acknowledge that many of us had forgotten Kipling’s admonition over the last two years.

Frankly, it is largely due to this collective hysteria that I have stayed on the sidelines and not written much during this period—I have been trying to absorb, understand and reflect on all that has been happening. I did not feel I could constructively add to the public discourse until I had something positive to contribute. But after listening to, and watching President Trump’s address to Congress last night, I feel that I have been quiet long enough.

Not only did the President rise to the occasion and challenge Congress to listen to what America wants from its leadership, his vision is a challenge to all American Conservatives to finally implement our principles into effective action.

In a nutshell, if we “keep our heads about us,” and patiently use the new majority-party status of the Republican Party at the federal, state and national levels wisely, we can reform government at all levels to implement lasting public policies that will truly make life better for our fellow citizens, and for those who still see America as the beacon for true and lasting liberty in this world. That is our challenge.

I have been waiting for decades for a Republican leader to address the “Elephant in the Room”: our abandonment of too many of our neighbors to failed federal, state and local policies. Yes, and even to the “carnage” such abandonment has helped create. For all of those who question the state of neighborhoods in our country that have fallen prey to poor policies, how many of you would choose to live on the South side of Chicago, in Baltimore, in Flynt or Detroit, with their failing schools, violent crime, crumbling infrastructure, and lack of employment opportunities; or to live in communities ravaged by the growing opioid epidemic? These conditions are not just the fault of failed “progressive” policies, they are our fault for not having maintained relationships, built trust and fought for our policies to address these problems. If we truly believe in Madison’s conception of government responsibilities, we have been challenged to change.

Just changing the health-care law, rolling back federal regulations and fixing our tax code will not be enough. We have to accept the challenge to re-assert our state and local responsibilities to fix our schools, our public-safety and criminal-justice systems, our infrastructure, and our employment opportunities in every neighborhood. Even here in Texas, we face challenges to address these systemic problems, and we must act.

I hope all of us took to heart the challenge we were presented last night. It is time to “keep our heads about us” and to re-engage in the hard work of self-government.

Cubs vs Indians: Let’s Play Two!

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cubs win

Ed Hubbard
Ed Hubbard

Last night, as I started to turn the lights off around 12:15 a.m., I got an email news alert from the Wall Street Journal announcing the Cubs had won the World Series in a “thriller for the ages.”  As the game I just finished watching was still sinking in, I thought that was a great way to describe what I just witnessed.

Frankly, in all my years of following this sport, I can’t remember another game that was as intensely and competitively played, or as emotionally exhausting, as last night’s finale.  The game was not the best played that I’ve ever seen, but it was one of, if not the most, dramatically played, with virtually every element that makes a game exciting to watch.  It truly goes down in baseball history as a “great game”—a testament to two fine organizations, two great managers, and two squads of fine young men.  Bravo!!!  (And, what a welcome diversion from all the noise that we’ve endured during the election campaign this fall!)

I am sure that a lot of people will write about this season, this World Series, and last night’s finale for years to come—my purpose for writing this post is just to share the moment and some memories that have flooded over me the last few weeks and touched me last night.

It started as I watched the field celebration at Wrigley Field the night the Cubs beat the Dodgers to win the NL pennant.  As I watched the young men sharing such joy, I noticed Billy Williams on the field with them and realized that he is one of the last players remaining from that great team I watched when I was learning to love this game.

A lot has been said about the Cub drought—108 years since a World Series win, 71 years since an NL pennant—but for someone my age so much of those numbers are just abstract “history.”  What we recall, and what has driven our embrace of this seemingly hapless team for so many years (even the embrace of this old White Sox fan), was the memory of a special squad of men who graced Wrigley Field for several summers in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s—arguably the finest team of players to never reach the playoffs.

Fifty years ago, in the spring of 1966, Chicago fans were excited as both teams seemed to be entering a new chapter with new managers.  While the Sox were replacing the great Al Lopez with Eddie Stanky, the Cubs were making an even bolder move by hiring Stanky’s mentor, Leo Durocher.  Neither move made much difference in 1966, but the next season both teams were in the hunt.  For the Sox, it would be the last of 17 straight winning seasons, in which they held 1st place until the middle of September and would be one of four teams to be tied for the AL lead going into the last week of the season.

But it was the Cubs that began to steal all the attention of Chicagoans, as team of hapless underachievers began to compete.  In fact, for a time in July, 1967, both Chicago teams were in 1st place—an incredible development.

For me, that was an important time, because my family moved that fall from the Chicago suburbs to a small town just north of Peoria, Illinois.  As a Sox fan, it was like a Kansan landing in Oz—no one was a Sox fan, and no one even recognized the AL as a “major” league—everyone was either a Cub or Cardinal fan, and they were competing against each other for the pennant for the first time since the 1940s.  So, while the Sox were trying to hold onto the AL lead in one of the tightest races in baseball history, everyone around me was following the NL race.

It was during that summer and fall that I had to finally pay attention to my brother’s favorite team—the Cubs.  And, frankly, I came to love that squad as much as I did my Sox.  Unfortunately, those Cubs were doomed to have to compete with three of the best teams of that era from 1967-1972, finishing in 2nd or 3rd place behind the 1967-68 Cardinals, the Amazing Mets of 1969, and Danny Murtaugh’s excellent Pirate teams of 1970-72.  But, the quality of that Cub squad’s play, coupled with the decency and joy they brought to the game (and, in turn, to their fans), made them larger than life to an entire generation of kids like me, who have carried those memories down through the years to last night.

First, there was the greatest infield of the era:  Hall of Famers Ernie Banks at first, and Ron Santo at third; joined by All-Stars Don Kessinger at short, and Glenn Beckert at second.  Joining them were Hall of Famers Billy Williams in left and Ferguson Jenkins on the mound, along with All-Stars Randy Hundley behind the plate, and Holtzman and Hands in the rotation.  The shear collection of talent was fun to watch.

But it wasn’t just the talent that drew the fans to this Northside team, it was their infectious love of the game, and their apparent love and respect of each other and the fans, which made them so memorable.  Ernie Banks was arguably the finest human being to ever grace an American sport; Ron Santo was the cheerful ambassador to the fans; and Billy Williams was the stoic sportsman and gentleman, whose consistency was incredible.  They formed a core of men who just seemed to love what they were doing and loved the City and the fans.  Add to those guys the wonderful play-by-play of Jack Brickhouse, and then Harry Carey, and the Cubs seemed like they were part of your family.  And you just wanted those guys to win someday.

It was that emotional memory that began to wash over me as I watched these new Cubs around Billy Williams that night at Wrigley—and it’s been in the back of mind since.  What makes what happened this fall so much more satisfying is that today’s squad resembles both the talent and the character of that team of my youth.  That helped to make last night very special.

So, as I closed that email last night, I thought to myself that Billy Williams must be very proud of, and happy for, these young men,; and that somewhere last night,

Ron Santo was jumping into the air and clicking his heels,

Jack Brickhouse and Harry Carey were toasting beers and saying “Hey, Hey!” and “Holy Cow!”

And,

There was Ernie, flashing that memorable smile that could light-up the darkest room, and saying, “Wow, that was great; so, let’s play two!”