LEGISLATIVE REDISTRICTING BOARD FINALIZES PLANS The seldom used Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB) completed its task of drawing new State House and Senate district lines on Tuesday, producing a result that is sure to send a Republican majority to the House and strengthen the Republican majority in the Senate. The House is currently controlled by the Democrat Party with 78 members to the Republicans 72, while the Senate contains a slim 16-15 Republican majority. The LRB’s plan is projected to elect approximately 88 to 92 Republicans in the House and 19 to 21 Republicans in the Senate. The five members of the LRB approved the plan by a 3-2 vote, with Land Commissioner David Dewhurst (R), Attorney General John Cornyn (R), and Comptroller Carol Keeton Rylander voting in favor, and House Speaker Pete Laney (D), and acting Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff (R) voting against. The plan is now subject to approval by the U.S. Department of Justice as well as numerous court challenges.
Among the more notable changes made were:
1) Senators David Cain (D-Dallas), Mike Moncrief (D-Ft. Worth), and David Bernsen (D-Beaumont) were all placed in Republican leaning districts and will have a difficult time holding their seats in the 2002 general election.
2) Representatives Ann Kitchen, Glen Maxey, and Elliott Naishtat—all Democrats from Austin—were placed in the same central Austin district.
3) Two of Speaker Laney’s strongest Republican allies, Reps. Delwin Jones and Gary Walker, were paired in the same district.
4) Harris County Democrat stalwarts Reps. Fred Bosse, Debra Danburg, and Scott Hochberg were all placed in tough, Republican leaning districts.
5) Houston Democrat Senator John Whitmire retained much of his old minority-majority district after being targeted by Republicans.
6) All told, 20 of the new Senate districts have a Republican voting index (a measure of Republican voting strength based on the 1998 election) of 56.4%, and two are near 50%. The House map includes 88 districts with Republican indexes over 56%, and four more with indexes between 54.8% and 55.6%.
Criticism of the LRB’s plan has come fast and furious from the media, interests groups, and Democrat lawmakers. Of the many complaints, the most common had been that the LRB plan violates that Voting Rights Act which states that new district lines cannot be drawn in such a way as to diminish minority representation. Redistricting experts have noted that lawsuits based on Voting Rights complaints stand a much better chance than those based solely on complaints of partisan gerrymandering. The Democrat Party used this fact to its advantage in 1990 when its House leadership drew lines that kept them in the majority while every statewide office and the Senate went Republican.
The final plan, while being a victory for Republicans, may still provide Democrats with some leverage. Unless Republicans take a minimum of 21 seats in the Senate, Democrats can kill bills by utilizing the suspension rule requiring a measure to receive a 2/3 favorable vote in order to be considered. On the House side, Democrat Pete Laney may retain the Speakership on the strength of rural votes if Republicans only manage a small majority. One thing is certain however: the face of Texas politics is going too change radically after the 2002 elections.
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HATE CRIMES LAWS ERODE RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES In a recent article entitled How Hate Crimes Laws Harm Religious Freedom and Lead to Same-sex
Marriage, Focus on the Family legislative expert Amy Desai discusses a number of possible unintended consequences of recently enacted hate crimes laws. She notes that laws tend to develop incrementally as individual cases are decided and a legal history is constructed. This process of incremental development means that the long-term ramifications of a given statute are impossible to predict up-front. Instead, they are gradually fleshed out over time by judges who chose to interpret the law narrowly or broadly, oftentimes creating new “law” based on their ideologies and political preferences. Ms. Desai argues that, based on their limited history thus far, hate crimes laws will proscribe religious freedom while simultaneously opening the door to same-sex marriage. This prediction is especially troubling in light of the fact that the Texas Legislature recently enacted an expansive hate crimes law offering protections to individuals based on their possession of a number of specifically enumerated characteristics, including “sexual preference.” In her article, Ms. Desai points out the danger inherent in the inclusion of sexual preference/orientation language in hate crimes laws, stating, “Sexual orientation has not traditionally been viewed as a basis for special legal status…By enacting hate-crime laws, the state officially places homosexuals in a class with race and national origin, which is a dangerous position.” Texas is in this dangerous position thanks to the shortsighted actions of our state leaders. Only strong, focused leadership will prevent the negative consequences of our hate crimes law from coming to fruition.
HOUSTON CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO FAVOR SAME-SEX COUPLES The Houston City Council voted Wednesday to pass a law handing special protection to employees on account of their race, gender, age, and sexual orientation. The law was passed at the urging of several homosexual rights advocates and Houston Mayor Lee Brown, who earlier had attempted to implement city health insurance benefits for same-sex partners, but later withdrew his proposal after acknowledging the need for a “non-discrimination” law. The city had passed a similar law in 1984, only to have it overturned the next year in a city-wide referendum taken by the voters. Mayor Brown praised the passage of the new rule, stating, “The Constitution guarantees that we all have the same opportunities, the same rights…As mayor, I want to make sure that I do everything in my power to make sure that that carries out as part of city government.”
If the Constitution already guarantees equal rights and equal opportunities to everyone, then why did the city of Houston need to pass a non-discrimination law to safeguard these already enumerated rights? The answer to this question is, simply, that Mayor Brown and the city council are not interested in guaranteeing equal rights, but extending new privileges and benefits to politically popular interest groups. Homosexuals have the same opportunities as anyone else to receive partner benefits from the city of Houston. All they need to do is acquire a partner of the opposite sex. By conferring benefits on homosexual relationships (and heterosexual “domestic partnerships, for that matter), Houston’s city council would remove the central institution of marriage from the benefit equation, leaving only cohabitation and some nebulous concept of love as the only qualifying criteria. Society has a legitimate interest in protecting and promoting the institution of marriage, but lovin’ and livin’ together?? Some folks love their pets…does that count?
EMBRYONIC STEM-CELL RESEARCH BATTLE HEATS UP
The fight over whether or not to fund embryonic stem-cell research with federal dollars has reached a fevered pitch in recent days. Unwilling to be nailed down to a definitive position, President Bush has indicated that he wants to weigh all options before making a policy decision. The argument has caused divisions even within the pro-life camp, with erstwhile conservatives like HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Connie Mack, and our own Senator Kay Bailey Huchison throwing their support behind further federal funding for the research. Eager to court the Catholic vote, however, President Bush has continued to delay his decision, and even met with Pope John Paul II who admonished him to defend life at every stage of development, including nascent embryos stored in test tubes.
Why is this issue so difficult for conservatives to achieve consensus on? Perhaps Ann Coulter is correct in her recent National Review article (please see below) when she notes that some pro-life advocates hold their position so long as it is convenient, but abandon it when they have a sick relative who may benefit from research conducted on embryonic stem-cells. Others simply cannot bring themselves to admit that an in-vitro embryo is actually human life, preferring to call it “potential life” instead. The truth of the matter is that something is either alive or it isn’t; one is either a human being or is something totally non-human. There are no half-stages, no intermediate forms of existence (although there are intermediate forms of development). Embryos contain all the DNA and biological components necessary to develop into fully-grown children; all they need is proper nurture and nutrition. Human beings are most vulnerable at the embryonic stage of development, and allowing these small people to be killed in the name of science will undermine the dignity and basic humanity of every man, woman, child and senator in our great nation.
CHARITABLE CHOICE HITS SNAG One of President Bush’s top priorities, the passage of a “Charitable Choice” program allowing non-profit religious groups to take advantage of federal dollars for use in their charity work, has finally set off the inevitable church-state debate. The point under debate is the extent to which federal non-discrimination laws must apply to religious charities that accept government money under the proposed program. Federal law forbids organizations from discriminating on the basis of religion or sex (this ultimately means sexual orientation) when hiring employees. It would unreasonable and even contradictory, however, to force a Catholic charity to hire an otherwise qualified homosexual atheist as a counselor. By virtue of its status as a
Catholic charity, such an organization has every right to discriminate in its hiring practices in favor of those who adhere to and practice its religious tenets.
This debate points out the difficulty that comes about when the federal government attempts to involve itself in directly supporting and funding religious organizations. Several more or less homogenous localities have successfully integrated religious charities into their subsidized welfare relief programs, but involving the federal government in the process raises almost insurmountable difficulties. As conservative people of faith, we protest when the National Endowment for the Arts funds offensive projects the serve only to mock religious belief. We must agree, however, that the atheist or the Muslim has a relatively similar argument when he decries the distribution of his tax money to proselytizing Christian charities.
A solution to this quandary has been offered by Representative Ron Paul. He has proposed that the federal government allow expansive tax deductions for all donations to religious groups performing charity service. Although this would require the government to decide which charities qualify as tax deductible, it would allow individual citizens the choice of which groups to support, and would eliminate the bureaucracy needed to collect and redistribute the funds in the first place. Hopefully, a common sense solution such as the one offered by Rep. Paul will soon find its way into the debate.
BONN CONFEREES REACH DEAL WITHOUT U.S. INVOLVEMENT
Delegates to the U.N.’s COP-6 climate change conference reached agreement last week on the terms of implementation for the Kyoto Protocol without any help or involvement from the U.S. Although details will continue to be hashed out during the coming months, the agreement will essentially force wealthy developed nations to cut back on emissions of the “greenhouse gas” CO2, but exempts the majority of the world’s nations under the pretense that they are “developing” or “underdeveloped.” Rich nations could, however, purchase “emissions credits” from poorer nations, allowing them to keep vital industries functioning while “redistributing” some of their “ill-gotten gain” to less fortunate peoples. The United States was correct to stay out of this enviro-Marxist mess, and would be wise to continue that posture indefinitely.
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Commentary -
Stem Cell Research: A Modest Proposal by Maggie Gallagher
Normally, the news doesn't keep me up nights. But something about this stem cell controversy is really getting to me.
Is it the ghastly eagerness with which, falsely framing the issue as either scientific progress or moral scruples, we merrily toss away the latter? President Bush just met with Pope John Paul II and heaped praise on his moral courage: "You have urged men and women of good will to take to their knees before God and to stand, unafraid, before tyrants," said Bush. "And this has added greatly to the momentum of freedom in our
time. Where there is oppression you speak of human rights; where there is poverty you speak of justice and hope. Where there is ancient hatred, you defend and display a tolerance that reaches beyond every boundary of race and nation and belief."
The 81-year-old pontiff in return asked President Bush to show a little moral courage of his own. Is America, which aspires to be a shining light to other countries, really about to entertain the idea of creating human embryos for research purposes? The pope warned Bush, who last week said he was still mulling over the question of removing bars to federally funded stem cell research, against "evils" such as "proposals for the creation
for research purposes of human embryos, destined to destruction in the process."
Maybe what gets me is the spectacle of normally "pro-life" men suddenly losing their principles when they get a whiff of personal benefit. "I'm a hypocrite," as one conservative New Jersey talk radio host cheerfully told me. It's one thing to have moral scruples about protecting human life when it's only women who bear the burden. But when it comes to scientific research that might save MY life, hey! Carve up those eentsy-weentsy unborn babies -- and here, have some taxpayer dollars to do it!
No. I think what bothers me most about the Brave New World Bush may launch is not that a human life will be destroyed, but that these human lives are, collectively, the next generation. These are not just any old humans we're talking about consuming; they are our young! This offends, at the deepest level, my core, gut instincts about what life is for. In a good society, adults sacrifice for the next generation; they don't sacrifice the next generation to the needs of adults.
What bothers me second most is the pessimism and lack of faith in human creativity implied by the advocates' argument: Either eat your young or people will die of MS, Alzheimer's, diabetes. This is always the devil's bargain, this attempt to make us believe that there is only one way to get some great thing, and that is to surrender all scruples.
The truth is that in scientific terms, the answer is just not clear. Stem cells can be derived from multiple sources: umbilical cord blood, 5- to 10-week-old fetuses, adult tissues (fat, brain), embryos and pre-embryos. These cells have different characteristics, and as the National Institutes of Health report just released emphasizes, we just don't know "the
extent to which these different cell types will be useful in the development of cell-based therapies to treat disease."
There's no guarantee that opening floodgates of taxpayer dollars for embryo research will lead to a cure for anything. It may even divert scientists' time and attention from more promising strategies. The dismal record of the government's 30-year war on cancer should make us hesitant about putting too much faith in government science anyway. Right now, venture capital is flowing into adult stem cell research at twice the rate of embryonic stem cell research, according to biotech expert Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
Any government research in this area is likely to be deeply distorted by abortion politics, anyway, as Dems rush to fund an end to any lingering respect for human life in its earliest stages.
Here's one modest proposal: How about funding a new national program to get parents to donate stem cells from umbilical cords? That way President Bush could preserve a respect for human life while advancing science. We can have decency and progress, too. All we have to do is care enough to find a better way.
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