-
Recent Posts
Search
Welcome to DCW
Upcoming Events
7/15/24 - GOP Convention
TBD - Democratic Convention
11/5/24 - Election DayTools
Archives
Tag Cloud
2008 Democratic National Convention 2012 Democratic National Convention 2012 Republican National Convention 2016 Democratic National Convention 2016 Republican National Convention 2020 Census 2020 Delegate Selection Plans 2020 Democratic Convention 2024 Democratic Convention 2024 Republican Convention Abortion Affordable Care Act Alabama Arizona Bernie Sanders California Delegate Selection Donald Trump First Amendment Florida Free Exercise Clause Free Speech Georgia Hillary Clinton Immigration Iowa Joe Biden John Kasich Kansas Maine Marco Rubio Michigan Missouri Nevada New Hampshire North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania redistricting Supreme Court Ted Cruz Texas Virginia Voting Rights Act WisconsinDCW in the News
Blog Roll
Site Info
-
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- DocJess on GOP convention plans remain in flux
- tmess2 on Dems prepare for virtual voting by delegates
- DocJess on GOP Jacksonville money woes continue
- DocJess on Dems prepare for virtual voting by delegates
- tmess2 on GOP now looking at outdoor Jacksonville convention
Archives
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- November 2014
- September 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- March 2014
- January 2014
- August 2013
- August 2012
- November 2011
- August 2011
- January 2011
- May 2010
- January 2009
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
Categories
- 2019-nCoV
- 2020 Convention
- 2020 General Election
- 2020DNC
- 2024 Convention
- 2028 Convention
- Anti-Semitism
- Bernie Sanders
- Charlotte
- Chicago
- Civil Rights
- Cleveland
- Climate Change
- Coronavirus
- Coronavirus Tips
- COVID-19
- Debates
- Delegate Count
- Delegates
- Democratic Debates
- Democratic Party
- Democrats
- DemsinPhilly
- DemsInPHL
- Disaster
- DNC
- Donald Trump
- Economy
- Elections
- Electoral College
- Federal Budget
- Freedom of the Press
- General Election Forecast
- GOP
- Healthcare
- Hillary Clinton
- Holidays
- Hotels
- House of Representatives
- Houston
- Identity Politics
- Impeachment
- Iowa Caucuses
- Jacksonville
- Joe Biden
- Judicial
- LGBT
- Mariner Pipeline
- Merrick Garland
- Meta
- Milwaukee
- Money in Politics
- Music
- National Security
- Netroots Nation
- New Yor
- New York
- NH Primary
- Notes from Your Doctor
- NoWallNoBan
- Pandemic
- Philadelphia
- PHLDNC2016
- Platform
- Politics
- Polls
- Presidential Candidates
- Primary and Caucus Results
- Primary Elections
- Public Health
- Rant
- Republican Debates
- Republicans
- Resist
- RNC
- Russia
- Senate
- Snark
- Student Loan Debt
- Sunday with the Senators
- Superdelegates
- Syria
- The Politics of Hate
- Uncategorized
- Vaccines
- War
- Weekly White House Address
Meta
Tag Archives: Texas
Georgia Runoff
The last election of 2022 will conclude on Tuesday with the runoff election for U.S. Senator in Georgia. While there are still some races that will go to recounts, all of the statewide and congressional races seem to be outside the margin at which a recount could make a difference. (There are three races with margins between 500 and 600 votes — Arizona Attorney General, California Thirteenth District, and Colorado Third District. In the Minnestoa Senate recount in 2008, the net swing from the original results to the recount results was 450 votes with an additional 87 votes gained in the election contest. The closest of the three races going to recount is 511. While other recounts have resulted in bigger swings, they were in races with bigger margins and Minnesota remains the largest swing that changed the results of a race.
The significance of the Senate race is not quite as big as it was in 2021 due to the Republicans apparently taking the House (but the Republican’s inability to reach a consensus on the next Speaker will be the subject of a future post) and the fact that the Democrats already have 50 seats. But the result still matters for five key reasons.
First, the additional seat will alter the composition of committees. With a 50-50 Senate, the committees are evenly divided. While the rules currently allow a bill or nomination to proceed to the Senate floor on a tie vote, a 51-49 Senate would result in the Democrats having a majority on the committees.
Posted in Elections, General Election Forecast, Senate
Also tagged Florida, Georgia, Herschel Walker, Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Raphael Warnock, West Virginia
Comments Off on Georgia Runoff
The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)
The first states with polls to close are mostly in the Eastern Time Zone. In the early states, we have two governor’s races (Georgia and Florida), four Senate races (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio), and seven House seats (1 in North Carolina, 3 in Ohio, and 3 in Virginia) that could be close. There are also several seats that are likely to flip solely because of the new maps (4 flipping red in Florida, 1 flipping red in Georgia, and 2 flipping blue in North Carolina).
But the big closing time is 7 p.m. Central ST. The remaining polls will close in Florida, and most of the polls will close in Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas. And all of the polls will close in Alabama (except for a very small portion that closed an hour earlier), Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. In short, when added to the states that close before 7 p.m., the polls will be closed in roughly half of the country by 7:01 p.m. (Of course, polls closed merely means that individuals need to be in line to vote at 7 p.m. Because there are typically people in line to vote, voting might actually continue in some urban precincts for a very long time after 7 p.m. which will delay counting in those areas.)
Starting with Alabama, there are no races that are likely to be close at the state or federal level. If the Supreme Court follows the Voting Rights Act, Democrats will probably pick up an additional seat in 2024, but the current maps which a district court correctly held violated the Voting Rights Act is in place for the 2022 election, and the 6-1 Republican advantage will remain in place for the next Congress. There are a lot of propositions on the ballot in Alabama, the most significant of which requires changes to election law to be adopted at least six months prior to a general election.
Posted in Elections, General Election Forecast, House of Representatives, Senate
Also tagged Connecticut, D.C., Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee
Comments Off on The Midterms — Preview (Part 2)
Redistricting 2022
The legislative part of redistricting is almost complete. Only nine states are still in the process of drafting the “first” set of maps. (Tw of those nine states are my home state of Missouri and the neighboring state of Kansas. In both states, the maps are through one house of the legislature and are under consideration in the second house.) In three states (Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), the first set of maps defaulted to the courts when the legislatures and the governors were unable to agree on the new maps.
But in the remaining states, the maps have been adopted. And that means that the battle over the maps has moved to the courts. At this point, I am aware of three states in which we have rulings about the new maps. Two of them are no surprise, or, at least, not much of a surprise. In Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court found that the map passed by the Ohio legislature violated the Ohio Constitutions rules on redistricting which bars drawing a map which unduly favors one political party or unduly splits political subdivisions. In North Carolina, the North Carolina Supreme Court has under review an initial decision upholding the maps drawn by the North Carolina legislature. The North Carolina Supreme Court will hear arguments on February 2. Right now, it looks more likely than not that the North Carolina Supreme Court will strike down the map in that state.
The surprise on the list might be Alabama. Alabama was not on the list of states that we looked at last year. The failure to do so caused us to miss a change in demography within the state. For the last several cycles, there has been one minority-majority district in western Alabama (the Seventh District). In previous decades, the consensus was that — even though approximately one-quarter of the state is African-American — the minority population was too dispersed to creeate a second district that would either be a minority-majority district or close enough to qualify as an influence district. (Part of the theory of the case is that the new districts dilute the influence of African-Americans in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or is a racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clasue.) After the last census, however, it appears that by placing Birmingham in one district (the Seventh District) and Montgomery in a separate district in the southern part of the state, you could get two minority-majority districts (or at least two districts that would qualify as influence districts). For now, the panel of judges hearing the Voting Rights Act case has ordered that Alabama will not be allowed to use the new maps pending a final decision (and has given Alabama thirty days to submit replacement maps or the court will draw maps for this election cycle). Alabama has asked the Supreme Court to put this ruling on hold, and the Supreme Court has asked the plaintiffs for a response by February 2.
Posted in Elections, House of Representatives
Also tagged Alabama, Equal Protection Clause, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Redisticting, Voting Rights Act
Comments Off on Redistricting 2022
Senate Bill 8 and the Supreme Court
This week, the Supreme Court will take up issues related to Texas’s new abortion law — Senate Bill 8. There are several key things to know about this case.
First, this case has been expedited. The Supreme Court turned down the request for a stay and granted review on the “merits” on October 22. The Supreme Court ordered the parties to file the written arguments on the merits by October 27. The Supreme Court will be hearing argument on November 1, just ten days after granting review. By contrast, the “normal” schedule set forth in the rules (which is typically condensed somewhat for cases in which review is granted between October and January) establishes a minimum of 115 days between the grant of review and argument. This expedited hearing, probably represents a compromise between the Justices that wanted to reinstate the trial court’s stay of the law and those that wanted to take this case in the ordinary course of Supreme Court review.
Second, the Supreme Court permitted the parties to bypass the Court of Appeals. While the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) has issued rulings on the stay entered by the trial court, it has not yet ruled on the merits of the case. The Rules of the Supreme Court permit parties to ask to bypass the appellate court (a petition for certiorari before judgment), but the Supreme Court rarely grants that request. Again, this decision probably represents a compromise between those that wanted to grant the stay (which would have been in effect until the Fifth Circuit decided the case) and those that wanted things to proceed in the ordinary course of review. It may also reflect the view that the Supreme Court has of the Fifth Circuit. There are several circuits known for their tendencies in litigation. There are three or four perceived to be ultra liberal with the Supreme Court needing to frequently correct them. The Fifth Circuit has the same reputation for being ultra conservative and has been frequently reversed on abortion cases. Given this reputation, the Supreme Court may have decided that there was no need to see what the Fifth Circuit would write.
Posted in Judicial
Also tagged Abortion, Anti-Discrimination laws, civil rights, Gun Control, gun rights, qui tam, Senate Bill 8
Comments Off on Senate Bill 8 and the Supreme Court
The Texas Abortion Law and the Supreme Court
As is typically the case with legal news, it is very possible to follow the main stream media and get a very inaccurate perception of what is happening in the courts. This misreporting isn’t intentional, it’s just that most reporters are not lawyers and thus miss the details that matter. This past week, the United States Supreme Court denied a stay application related to a new Texas statute that bars abortion after the sixth week of a pregnancy and allows private individuals to enforce that bar by filing a civil case against anybody who aided the woman in getting the abortion — with the remedy being a $10,000.00 payment from the defendant to the person bringing the case. Given the news coverage, I have three comments.
First, most of the impact of the law will come from its nuisance value. The actual age of a fetus is an estimate. Barring some other method that gives a more accurate estimate, gestational age is estimated based on a woman’s last menstrual period (which assumes a regular menstrual cycle and not all women have a regular cycle). Even the woman herself may not know the exact date of conception (unless she only had sex once since her last period). And in the early stages of pregnancy (and most abortions occur in the first trimester), it is impossible for the average person to know the gestational age of the fetus by simply looking at the woman. So unless the woman tells her friend who is driving her to the doctor’s office that she is ten weeks pregnant, the friend will have no idea that the gestational age is beyond six weeks. While I haven’t read the full statute, it seems at first glance that it will be hard for plaintiffs to win. But, particularly for abortion providers, the new statute will mean that they are regularly in court with significant legal expenses and average people might be reluctant to help their friends given the expense of defending against these claims.
Second, the empowering of private citizens to bring claims on behalf of the government is not new. The exact way that these cases will work might have some new wrinkles, but there is an established legal procedure known as qui tam (a shortened title for a latin phrase that translate as “he who sues in this matter on behalf of the king as well as for himself”). As the reference to the king in the translation hints, this procedure is quite old. Usually, in the U,S., qui tam statutes involve allowing those with inside information to bring fraud claims on behalf of the government. If certain legal requirements are met, the successful qui tam plaintiff splits the recovery with the government. Even without the precedent of qui tam, however, it is clear that any legal claim is state action for the purpose of constitutional law which is why libel suits are restricted by the First Amendment.
Posted in Judicial
Also tagged Abortion, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, qui tam, stay, Supreme Court, temporary injunction
Comments Off on The Texas Abortion Law and the Supreme Court
Redistricting — Texas
Texas is up first on the list of first looks at redistricting. This look at Texas will feature some issues that are going to be recurring throughout this discussion and one issue that will impact Texas the most but might come into play in some other states.
The first issue is that we do not yet have the actual precinct and block level counts from the 2020 census. That means that this first look is based on the 2019 estimates. And, of course, estimates are not necessarily exact (as the state level numbers for 2020 showed). While the far right is upset about the national numbers and want to raise sinister suggestions that something happened behind the scenes to fudge the real numbers, it is equally likely that the previous administration was fudging the numbers in the estimates. What is most likely is that certain steps by red state governments and anti-government rhetoric led to an undercount of certain groups in red states in 2020 when the Trump Administration was running the Census. So, we have to expect that there will be some unexpected deviations within states when we get the numbers in November.
The second issue is the Donald Trump had a big impact on voters. There are various ways to measure partisan lean in a state. Most involve taking a composite of recent state-wide elections. The software that I am using is currently based on the 2012 through 2016 elections. In Texas, in 2012, both Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Mitt Romney carried the state by around 16%. In 2014, Senator Cornyn carried the state by about 27% and other Republicans were winning by around a 22% margin. In 2016, Donald Trump won by around 9%. In 2018, however, Senator Cruz only won by 2%. While Governor Greg Abbott won by around 13% with the other state-wide Republicans ranging between 3% and 11%. Finally, in 2020, President Trump only won by 6% and Senator Cornyn won by around 10%. In other words, what my software is showing as a 60-40 state based on the 2012-16 results is actually something more like a 54-46 state. And a good chunk of that swing was in suburban districts which probably went from something like 60-40 to very close to 50-50. Overall, there were three congressional districts (Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth) in which the Republican House candidate beat the 2012-16 Republican composite numbers in their district, and in some districts the Republican underperformed by around 10%.
Posted in Elections, Politics
Also tagged 2020 Census, Citizen Voting Age Population, Equal Protection Clause, redistricting
Comments Off on Redistricting — Texas
Redistricting 2021 — The Numbers
On Monday, four days ahead of its latest target date and almost four months behind the statutory date, the Census Bureau released the national and state-level results from the Census including the apportionment numbers that determine how many representatives each get. As can be expected, there are multiple different tables summarizing the data in different ways for us number geeks.
The bottom line table shows the apportionment population (both those living in the state and those residing overseas — like military personnel — who call that state home), the number of representatives that each state is getting, and the change in representation. We will get back to the change in a minute, but the big level number is that the apportionment population is slightly over 331 million. As such, the average size (mean) of each congressional district is just under 761 thousand. Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming have fewer people than the average congressional district. While the apportionment formula does not work for calculating the population needed for the first representative, even Wyoming has enough population to be entitled to three-quarters of a representative.
If, D.C. and Puerto Rico were states, Puerto Rico would be just ahead of Utah (which has four representatives) and just behind Connecticut (which has five representatives) and D.C. would be between Vermont and Alaska. Given that Puerto Rico is only slightly larger than Utah (which was not close to getting a fifth representative and far enough behind Connecticut, Puerto Rico would be due for four representatives. If both were states, the five states that would lose a representative would have been Oregon, Colorado, and Montana (all of which gained a seat), California (which lost a seat), and Minnesota (which barely avoided losing a seat). The chart of priority values that allows us to consider the impact of adding Puerto Rico and D.C. also shows that Minnesota barely held onto its last seat and New York barely lost its seat. Apparently, given the formula, Minnesota would have lost that seat if it had 24 fewer people, and New York would have kept its seat if it had 89 more people. (The disparity in numbers is caused by the fact that the two states have different number of seats.
Posted in House of Representatives
Also tagged 2020 Census, apportionment, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, redistricting, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia
Comments Off on Redistricting 2021 — The Numbers
Why Congress has authority over Federal Elections
As Republicans in swing states seem to be dedicated to winning elections by keeping Democrats from voting rather than persuading people to vote Republicans, Democrats in Congress are pushing the “For the People Act.” Some of the provisions in this Act will prevent states from suppressing the vote in federal elections. The House version has already passed and it seems that Senate version may be the bill that forces a showdown over the future of the filibuster.
One of the critiques that the conservative media establishment has made of this bill is that it involves a takeover of elections by Congress. This critique, however, ignores the plain language of the Constitution. Congress has full authority over elections to Congress. Specifically, Article I, Section 4 permits the states to make laws about congressional elections but it expressly grants authority to Congress to “at any time by law make or alter such regulations” as the states have enacted. However, Congress has, for the most part, opted against fully using its authority because it hasn’t felt the need to do so.
In explaining the need for this power, the authors of The Federalist Papers noted that, without this Congressional power, state governments would be able to frustrate the federal government by simply failing to hold elections. And we are currently seeing, in real time, an example of what state control over elections can mean for Congress.
Posted in Elections, House of Representatives
Also tagged For the People Act, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio, special elections
Comments Off on Why Congress has authority over Federal Elections
Election Night Preview — Part 2 (8 PM to 9 PM EST)
As noted in the previous post, by 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we should have a significant amount of precincts being reported in the two earliest states (Kentucky and Indiana) and should be starting to get some counties reporting votes in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont. During this hour, the counts in those states should be increasing. By 9 p.m., we should be seeing either some projection in those states or an indication that the states are too close too call. We may also be getting an indication in some of those states of how many absentee votes might remain to be counted (which could determine whether it will be possible to make any projection in those states on election night).
While it would be nice if we could get calls in a state like Virginia early in this hour, the bigger question as the hour goes will be the types of swings that we are seeing in these states. Virginia in 2016 was a leading indicator as we were just not getting strong results compared to 2012. So as this hour goes along and the networks start looking at the maps of the state, the key thing to pay attention to is how the numbers are comparing to 2016. Even if the networks aren’t comfortable in calling a state yet, if the results are showing that Trump is underperforming in red parts of a state (i.e. rural counties) and Biden is overperforming in the suburbs, then that is a good sign for the rest of the evening as Trump only one by the slimmest of margins in 2016 and any erosion in his support could prove fatal.
This hour has the most states close. You have partial closures in Florida (the rest of the state closed an hour earlier), Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota, and Texas. While a significant part of South Dakota will close an hour later, the polls close for most of the population in Kansas, Michigan, and Texas at 8 p.m. Eastern. In addition to these states, polls for the entire state close at 8 p.m. Eastern in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.
Posted in 2020 General Election, General Election Forecast
Also tagged Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee
Comments Off on Election Night Preview — Part 2 (8 PM to 9 PM EST)