Category: Uncategorized

Chronicle Daily News, Feb. 13, 2004

“I am outraged that

opponents of affirmative action would go to these lengths to mislead people, to collect information

that they will use to attack affirmative action,” said Ms. Berry, who was appointed to the commission

by President Jimmy Carter and has led the panel since 1993. “It is illegal, immoral, and unethical, in

my view, for a special assistant to a commissioner to send a survey to colleges and universities that

will be led to believe that this is the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights undertaking the survey.”

“I hope that colleges and universities will not respond to it,” Ms. Berry said.

The survey, which was printed on commission letterhead, was sent to the colleges’

presidents by Christopher A. Jennings, a special assistant to Peter N. Kirsanow. Mr. Kirsanow, a

Republican, was appointed to the commission by President Bush and has frequently criticized race-

conscious college admissions in articles written for the National Review. In an interview Thursday, Mr.

Jennings said he was “just acting on Commissioner Kirsanow’s authority,” and “this is not an

official act of the commission as a whole.”

Following closing arguments in the Texas school funding trial on Sept. 15, 2004,

Judge John Dietz (250th District Court of Texas) issued three rulings, an advisory, and public

comments. Copies of the documents have been provided via email from the judge’s office. After each

of the three rulings below, I have added an editor’s

note:

Rulings

Ruling 1. The Court

declares that for plaintiff districts and others, the costs of meeting the constitutional mandate of

adequacy and/or the statutory regime of accreditation, accountability, and assessment exceeds the

maximum amount of revenues that are available under the State’s current funding formulae. Therefore,

the State’s school finance system fails to provide an adequate suitable education as required by

Article VII, section 1 of the Texas Constitution.

Editor’s Note:

“Adequacy” is one of three standards (suitability,
adequacy, and efficiency) used by the Texas

Supreme Court to test the constitutional
validity of any educational system established by the

legislature. As the wording
of the ruling indicates, the “adequacy standard” determines whether

resources
provided are sufficient to ensure that a “general diffusion of knowledge” is

offered to Texas school children. The Judge here says that the legislature
has not provided enough

resources to meet its constitutional obligations. In
ruling number three below, the judge will

also rule that the system is not
sufficiently”efficient”. But it is interesting to note that

the judge did
not rule against the “suitability” of Texas education. In other words, he

seems to be satisfied that the curriculum standards offered in Texas education
are appropriate,

but need to be more widely supported with resources. I take
this to mean that Texas educators have

developed an appropriate curriculum,
and may even be doing the best they can with the resources

given them. The
failure in this regard belongs mostly to agents who are supposed to make sure

that the state gives out “adequate” resources to support its educators and
students. In other

words, it is the elected officials of Texas, not the administrators,
educators, or students who

are chiefly at fault in this judgment.

[See additional rulings, editor’s notes, and

comments from the judge in Read More below:]

Ruling 2. The Court

declares that for some of plaintiff districts and others are forced to tax at the $1.50 statutory cap

on the M&O tax rates to provide a general diffusion of knowledge and/or a statutory accreditation,

accountability, and assessment regime. These districts have lost all meaningful discretion in setting

the tax rate for their districts, thereby violating Article VIII, section 1 (e) of the Texas

Constitution.

Editor’s Note: This is the main issue that motivated the

lawsuit from the “property-rich” districts of Texas, otherwise known as the West Orange Cove

plaintiffs. They argued that because they were taxing at or near the maximum allowable rate of $1.50

(per hundred dollars of taxable property value for purposes of Maintenance and Operation) and because

they were using nearly all the resulting funds to attempt to provide basic state and federal

requirements, that they were subsequently unable to offer desired local options for enrichment and

excellence. This, they argued, meant that their local property taxes had in effect been hijacked for

state purposes, making the property tax a state tax. And a state property tax is unconstitutional in

Texas. The Judge agreed that the $1.50 limit on local taxes had resulted in an unconstitutional state

property tax.

Ruling 3. The Court declares that the State’s school

finance system is neither financially efficient nor efficient in the sense of providing for the

mandated adequate education nor the statutory regime of accreditation, accountability, and

assessment.

Editor’s Note: This is the famous “Robin Hood” ruling.

As
headlines blared the morning after the judge’s ruling, “Robin Hood” as we know
it has

been found lacking. But this does not mean that the “Robin Hood” system
has been overturned. In

fact, the judge here is saying that the state does
not yet do enough to “equalize” the funding

disparities between property rich
and property poor districts. This ruling is a victory for the

Edgewood Interveners
represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) and the

Alvarado

Interveners represented by “Buck” Wood and his associates. Here the judge
is

saying that the legislature needs to adopt an even more equitable “Robin
Hood” scheme. Bad news

for all fans of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Judge’s advisory: I will

enter an injunction that state funding of public schools cease unless the legislature conforms the

school finance system to meet these constitutional standards. The effective date of the injunction

will be one year from the date I enter the order, which will be approximately October 1,

2004.

Judge’s Public Remarks (as read in court):

I have

kept this yellow sticky on my computer monitor and it is a quote from Edgewood IV, it says: The people

of Texas have themselves set the standards for their schools. The court’s responsibility is to decide

whether that standard has been satisfied, not to judge the wisdom of the policy choices of the

Legislature, or to impose a different policy of our choosing. To the best of my ability, I have tried

to follow the Supreme Court’s admonition of judicial restraint.

Texas has experienced

phenomenal growth of population over the past decade and a half. We are now the second most populous

state in the country. This growth has shown itself in our schools. Texas now has 4.4 million public

school children and we are adding approximately 80,000 students a year to our system.

There is, in our current system, unquestionably, a significant gap of more than ten points in

educational achievement between economically disadvantaged students and non-economically disadvantaged

students. This is really remarkable when you consider that over half of our public education students

in Texas are economically disadvantage. In other words, half of our students in Texas are significantly

behind in achievement compared to the other half.

The state demographer, Steve Murdock,

whose 500-page report is in evidence, has projected what happens to our Texas population if this

educational achievement gap continues on into the future. If the education gap persists on into the

year 2040, Texas average household income falls from about $54,000 presently to $47,000. If the gap

persists to 2040, the number of adult Texans without a high school diploma will rise from 18% presently

to 30%. Additionally, the population in prison, on welfare, and needing assistance will likewise rise

significantly. In other words, Texas in 2040 will have a population that is larger, poorer, less

educated, and more needy than today.

Who in Texas would choose this as our future? The

answer is no one. Not a single Texan, from Brownsville to Dalhart or El Paso to Beaumont, would pick

that as a future for Texas. Well, what can we do to keep this dismal future from becoming a reality?

The key to changing our future is to close the gap in academic achievement between the

haves and the have-nots. The state demographer projects that if we could close the gap in educational

achievement just half way by 2020, then Texans would be wealthier than today in real dollars spend more

money for our economy pay more taxes for our government.
If the education gap were completely

closed, then Texas would be wealthier and would spend less in real dollars on prisons and the needy

than it does today. The solution seems obvious; Texas
nee
ds to close the education gap. But the rub is

that it costs money to close the educational achievement gap. It doesn’t come free. So, are Texans

willing to pay the price, to make the sacrifice to close the education gap, to secure their future and

their children’s future?

Our willingness to make the sacrifice depends upon our vision

and our leadership. Throughout our history as a state, our leaders have understood the importance of

education.
Chief among the complaints of Texans, in 1836, declaring their independence from the

government of Mexico, was that the government of Mexico with its boundless resources had failed to

establish any public system of public education. It’s there in the Texas Declaration of Independence.

In our very first constitution, our founders gave the legislature a mandate to establish a system of

public education, a provision that was repeated by our leaders in the 1876 Constitution.

Are we, at this present day, to turn our back on our 168 years of heritage of Texas public

education and say that we aren’t prepared for the sacrifice? Are we to say that to close the gap is

too hard, too much money, and that we simply give up?

Are we prepared for a future in

Texas that is dismally poor, needy, and ignorant? I think not.

Again I repeat it is the

people of Texas who must set the standards, make the sacrifice, and give direction to their leaders.

And the time to speak is now. These problems only get more difficult the longer we

wait.

The lesson is this, education costs money, but ignorance costs more money.

Money invested in education benefits first the children of Texas, or in other words, our future.

It also benefits our entire economy because educated people make more money, spend more money, and pay

more taxes.

I have abundant optimism that the people of Texas are willing to pay the

price and make the sacrifices necessary for the education of our children. As Texans, we can and must

do better for our future, our children. It’s the right thing to

do.

By Greg Moses

Dissident Voice / Portside / IndyMedia NorthTexas / CounterPunch / CraigsList

“As I look back

over the General Election held on Nov. 2, 2004, I know that voting is a ‘right’ that is being taken

away everyday,” writes Brenda Denson-Prince. But she is not writing about far away places like Ohio

or Florida. She is writing about her own attempt to become the first woman in Kaufman County, Texas to

sit on the County Commissioners Court. On the day after Christmas, Denson-Prince faxes me forty

pages.

For the past three years the 50-year-old Texas native studied up for the position of

County Commissioner by going to meetings. And she recruited the outgoing Commissioner, Ivan Johnson,

to be her campaign manager. In the Democratic primary, she won handily. And right up to ten o’clock

on election night, she felt pretty good about her chances. That’s about the time she says she left

Democratic Party headquarters in the town of Kaufman to return home to Terrell. With virtually all

nine voting boxes counted, she was about 200 votes ahead.

“Y’all better get back over

here,” is what Terry Crow told Ivan Johnson over the telephone not too long after ten o’clock.

“They’re about to steal the election away from Brenda.” Johnson was watching the phone at the

Denson-Prince campaign headquarters in Terrell. So Johnson called Denson-Prince, they hopped in their

cars, and sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 that night, they walked through the back door of the Kaufman

County courthouse annex, where the votes had been counted.

“In the hall, there was the

election administrator,” recalls Denson-Prince. “She said, ‘Brenda, it’s a tie, so you can flip a

coin if you want to.’” Denson-Prince would prefer to keep it off the record what she said in reply

to that flip remark.

“Did you say, ‘God bless you’?” I ask Denson-Prince over the

telephone on the day after Christmas. Her voice over the past two months has been reduced to a bare

whisper. She spent Christmas weekend in bed. “No, I didn’t say that,” answers Denson-Prince in a

whisper of pure air and electricity. “I said what are you talking about, a tie?” According to the

official returns, each candidate had received 2,867 votes.

“Come out here and explain,”

said the administrator to an assistant. Between the two of them, who both seemed pretty nervous,

Denson-Prince caught the words “glitch” and “disk.”

“Deja-Vote,” hollered the

headline in Wednesday morning’s Terrell Tribune. “A computer software glitch is being blamed for

controversy that occurred Tuesday night as ballots were being counted by Kaufman County election

officials,” began the story.

“The problem occurred when data taken from one counting

machine to another computer for collating became corrupted. The data roughly doubled the amount of

votes counted for several precincts, according to Kaufman County information technology director George

York.” A two-column photo of York showed him testing a ballot-counting machine on Wednesday

morning.

When Denson-Prince returned to the courthouse Wednesday morning with Justice of

the Peace James Williams, the election administrator assured Denson-Prince that a recount could be

requested at a cost of about $2,000.

Meanwhile another story in that day’s Tribune

reported Ohio-length voting delays. At Bethlehem Baptist Church (voting box 26) lines were said to be

45-minutes long, owing to van-loads of enthusiastic young voters from nearby Southwestern Christian

College.

By the end of the day, reported the paper (quoting Election Judge Russell

Jones) there were “366 voters” at Bethlehem Baptist. The paper did not explain why at 10:09 p.m.

that night, only 360 ballots appeared in the official, computerized tally for box 26, a precinct that

Denson-Prince won handily, with 94 percent of the vote. On the most recent count of box 26, says

Kaufman County Democratic Chair George Lawshe in a Dec. 7 email, there were 342 voters and 361

ballots.

“I can not think of any reason for this,“ concludes Lawshe in his discussion of

box 26, “other than the obvious thought that we would rather not think could happen.”

The

Terrell Tribune also missed a little drama that took place outside Bethlehem Baptist Church on election

day. According to Election Judge Jones, in a signed statement, there was this husband of a Republican

poll watcher who was hanging around the entrance to the Church for at least an hour, well within the

100 foot marker that designates a safe space for voters. This Republican husband challenged the

presence of an exit pollster and generally became such a nuisance that Jones called the police. By the

time the police arrived, the Republican husband had departed, but not before apologizing to Jones for

the behavior that had compelled Jones to leave his rightful post overseeing the election inside the

Church (at box 26).

Thursday morning, Nov. 4, Denson-Prince presented a cashier’s check

for $2,000 to cover the cost of a hand count. But recounts could only be ordered by the County Judge,

and he was out of town. Weekend news was about military ballots that had been mailed out but not yet

returned. Indeed, one ballot showed up, but the voter skipped the commissioner’s race. So the tie

lasted one full week.

On Nov. 9 Denson-Prince composed a comprehensive open-records

request. She wanted to see a written explanation for the tabulation error that had reversed her

comfortable lead on election night, as well as all write-in ballots for president, provisional ballots

that had been rejected, and printouts of tabulations per box. On Nov. 28 she appealed her request to

the Texas Attorney General.

On Wednesday morning, Nov. 10, Joan D. Neeley represented

the Democratic Party at a sorting of early ballots. Of 30,000 votes cast in Kaufman County, 16,000

were early votes.

“We kept noticing ballots in the wrong piles [voting boxes] as we

continued through our process and because of this we all decided we would double check each pile

[voting box] for accuracy after sorting was complete,” noted Neeley in a signed statement, dated Nov.

16. But according to Neeley’s statement, the double-checking was never completed. It was interrupted

on Nov. 10, and when on Nov. 12 Neeley requested a resumption, she was informed that a court order

would be needed to break the seals on remaining boxes.

Prior to the electronic recount,

Denson-Prince released her letter to the Texas NAACP. “I as an African American female, do not feel

that my rights were protected,” wrote Denson-Prince. “I feel that I have been discriminated

against.” Her letter to the Texas NAACP was reported as top story in the Kaufman Tribune for Nov. 12.

But the story never leaked out of the county, and as far as I can tell, the newspaper does not make

some of these stories available online.

Saturday’s headline was matter of fact. The

electronic recount had found 2,870 votes for Denson-Prince and 2,873 for her Republican opponent.

Meanwhile, Saturday’s hand count yielded six more votes for Denson-Prince (2,876) and six for her

opponent, too (2,879). When commissioners met Monday morning, Nov. 15, Denson-Prince’s campaign

manager approved the canvassed vote. Denson-Prince had lost by three votes.

What’s

surprising to me at this point is the apparent lack of support or attention being given to Denson-

Prince by powers outside of Kaufman County. Last year at this time, two of the four Commissioners for

Kaufman County were Democrats. Next week, if nothing cha
nges, there will be none.

On

Dec. 15, Denson-Prince filed suit in the Kaufman County District Court of Republican Judge Howard

Tygrett.

“During the final recount,” alleges the suit, the election judge miscounted

two ballots, failing to give Denson-Prince one more vote, and failing to take one vote away from her

opponent. Adding one vote to Denson-Prince while taking one from her opponent would close the race to

one vote.

Then there is the matter of Mrs. Bertha Maye Malone, who was informed by a

letter postmarked Nov. 2 that her mail-in ballot would not be counted because it lacked a proper

signature on the envelope.

“The voter, her daughter, and husband are ready to swear that

Mrs. Bertha Malone signed her ballot but might have been signed with pencil included with ballot,”

says Denson-Prince. This is why she asked to see the discarded early votes in her open records request

of Nov. 9, and why she is not giving up. Would examination of Mrs. Malone’s envelope yield evidence of

erasure, in the way that Denson-Prince discovered erased ballots during the hand count?

“Oh, the voters bring erasers with them,” is what Denson-Prince was told when she asked how erased

ballots were possible when the balloting pencils have no erasers.

By this time, the

whisper of Denson-Prince over the telephone is too much to bear. I keep apologizing for making her

talk as I go box by box over the Nov. 2 results, and she keeps answering in the most deliberate, polite

manner possible. I keep thinking, this woman was born in the year of Brown v.

Board.

Denson-Prince lives in a Southern town that is cut in half by an East-West

railroad. She lives at the Southern tip of the Southern half, and she wins the boxes on the South side

of the tracks (5, 26, 34). Her opponent lives at the northern tip of the northern half. And he wins

the boxes on that side of the tracks (7, 19, 38). Three rural boxes to the East (6, 8, 9) draw upon a

population that is 88 percent white and which go for the Republican, although Denson-Prince out-

performs Kerry in two of the three rural boxes. After fifty years of struggle, is democracy in America

still about living on the other side of the tracks?

I haven’t mentioned some other

things that are mentioned in the faxes, for instance, the ballot that was “whited out” (who knows

how). Or the “electrical work” that was going on in the ceiling above voting booths 1, 2, and 3 on

election day at the Terrell Sub-Courthouse, 408 E. College St. Or the delay reported by Denson-

Prince’s campaign rep, who reports waiting from 10 o’clock until 10:30, but who left before the tie

was announced. Or the peculiar coincidence reported by Terry Crow who saw a district judge enter the

counting room on election night just before the “glitch” was reversed and the commissioner election

tied. Does a coincidence like that have any bearing on which judge gets to hear the lawsuit filed by

Denson-Prince?

There’s a whole lot this little story can’t tell you about democracy in

America today. But we can listen to the whisper of Brenda Denson-Prince, and we can read her

faxes:

“The responsible individuals that we have placed in authority to watch over the

elections to make sure voting is held in an orderly process just makes me really ashamed of being a

United States citizen when I see such abuse and abnormalities allowed to go unquestioned or

investigated.”

NOTE:

PDF files of all faxes are available at the Downloads

section of the Texas Civil Rights Review. Mirror sites welcome for this article and the

files.

Corrected 12/27 3pm: References to newspaper articles are to the

Terrell Tribune, not Kaufman Herald. Terry Crow fixed in first reference.–

ed