Democrat-on-Democrat political sniping is threatening important reform bills, most notably bail reform.
The Houston Chronicle is still pleading with Senate Criminal Justice Committee John Whitmire to pass Raise-the-Age (RTA) legislation, but that ship has probably sailed in the form of the senate's two-year study bill. Meanwhile, RTA author Rep. Harold Dutton has threatened to retaliate by killing Whitmire bills in the House, including Democratic threats to the senate's bipartisan bail-reform bill, SB 1338.
Dutton reasonably asked, "Why do we need [those bills] more than we need raise the age?" OTOH, Grits could make the argument that Texas needs police reform more than either HB 122 or SB 1338, but those bills are all dead. So it's not about what's most important at this stage in the legislative process, only what's possible.
Most any other senate bill Chairman Dutton wanted to make an example of would be fine by me. But Grits would consider it irresponsible act to retaliate for the death of important criminal-justice reform legislation by killing other important criminal-justice reform legislation that could keep tens of thousands of low-risk, working class defendants from being held in jail, with all the collateral consequences that can result from that. There's a ton of crossover between supporters of the RTA bill and bail reform, and real public safety implications for failing to evaluate risk in pretrial detention decisions. There has to be a better means to retaliate than that!
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8 comments:
Don't feel bad. Republican factions in both chambers have been retaliating against each other and killing good legislation for the last several sessions. Politics and egos. Personally I'd like to thank Chairman Whitmire and Sen. Huffman for putting the brakes on RTA. I think most people in this state would be quite content LOWERING the age of accountability.
All the polling says you're wrong and the public DOES support RTA, 5:14. But sure, we'll take your anonymous word for it when them most prominent GOP pollster in the state says otherwise.
Also, your "personal" thanks would probably be more appreciated if you had the courage to associate your name with your opinions.
Texas Young Democrats posted on their FB page this morning that the Freedom Caucus is killing good bills in retaliation for their anti-abortion bills dying in committees. Must be May in Austin.
What would the public want after watching this??????
http://abc13.com/news/teen-charged-with-manslaughter-of-woman/1787459/
This is just childish.
It's always amusing when Scott and anonymous commentators engage in semantic battles, each arguing completely different things with each other. Anon 5/12/2017 05:14:00 AM tells us his opinion that "most people in the state" favor one thing and Scott's rebuttal is a narrowly drawn group (GOP primary voters) polled in such a way that they heavily favored raising the age. Both of you likely know how few primary voters were polled and how there's over 25 million people in the state, the subset of GOP primary voters tiny by comparison. Not that it matters to anyone but if asked regarding felony crimes, my opinion is that "most people" in the state would be in favor of dropping the age further or keeping it the same even if there is good reason to reform for those engaging in most non-violent crimes.
@8:32, they'd probably say they're glad the bill still allows youth to be certified as adult when they commit serious crimes like that, while understanding that MOST crimes by 17-year olds are petty stuff that should stay in the juvenile system.
@2:45: Baselice polled the general public AND Republican primary voters. Both overwhelmingly supported RTA - I just pulled out the primary voter piece because it was especially telling. This is not a "semantic battle": It is a dispute between one side that's positing a stance supported by math and data, with another side anonymously spouting positions based on job-related self-interest for which there is NO evidence nor data and which in fact are false. That couldn't be more of a false equivalence.
State after state have recently raised the age - most recently South Carolina, New York, and Louisiana, so the idea that most people oppose it is belied not just by polling data but also by the idea's widespread popularity in other states, including red ones.
Grits, just how well a poll of any sort predicts for the general population is grounds for continual debate. In this case, I tend to side with you though I know good and well that many others support leaving well enough alone. I'm not a big believer in using what other countries or states did as showing support for what Texans would prefer at all but in this case, I think it's the right thing to do.
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