1) I was never a great fan of the "progressive prosecutor" movement, both from a conceptual and a strategic perspective. Conceptually, I believe the prosecutor's role is inherently regressive. Their only power -- to seek state punishment for rule violators -- is a regressive function. IMO, there's no "progressive" way to do that job. Strategically, I believe, based on reams of polling data, that criminal-justice reform doesn't consistently win in majoritarian election contexts. We do better when the debate is over facts, arguments, and experts. Elections related to crime, by contrast, are more typically about unexamined, inchoate voter feelings and scary anecdotes. In certain towns, like Austin, Democratic primaries are liberal enough to pull it off. (We're lucky to have José Garza.) But Texas has 254 counties, nearly all of which have their own DA. And we need look no further than the largest (Harris) to see that Democrats running as "progressive" don't necessarily live up to any meaningful usage of that term.
2) The debacle around the city park in Eagle Pass clearly is an intentional provocation by Greg Abbott, politicizing DPS and the National Guard to obstruct the Border Patrol, ironically. Now that people have died, we'll see litigation surrounding this. I don't blame Biden for high migration levels, but I do blame him for waiting to confront Abbott until it got this far, with armed agents of the federal government in a standoff with the National Guard while migrants drowned in front of them. One appears less noble when you're forced to act and do so only when backed into a corner after pointless, predictable deaths occur. The fecklessness equals that in Uvalde, if not the scope of tragedy. It's amazing how Abbott can be so profoundly in the wrong, and at the same time the Biden Administration can still seem to find no high ground.
3) The AG's open records process has become increasingly politicized, particularly on law enforcement and criminal-justice records. They deny records based on the flimsiest of claims now. It's incredibly frustrating, particularly for someone who started this work in the halcyon pre-Holmes-v-Morales era.
4) Since I'd written on Grits about the Texas prison system's long-defunct prison-baseball league, I should mention finding this article recently referencing the "Satchel Paige" of the Texas prison system, Claud "Scottie" Walker, a negro-league alum who played for Rube Foster's Chicago American Giants and was still hurling for the Clemens Unit Panthers, at age 68, in 1963. Walker said the greatest baseball experiences in his life were pitchers' duels versus John E. Hines, another American Giants alum who pitched for 8 years or so for the Ramsey (Unit) Hard Hitters. I wanna track down more on these two men, so maybe more on these topics, soon.
5) Between Keri Blakinger moving to SoCal, Jolie McCollough getting laid off, and Grits taking most of 2023 away, it's REMARKABLE how much shit TDCJ and TJJD can get away with with nobody paying close attention. Michele Deitch is right, they need their own oversight agency. That's a full time job if you have staff, not something one reporter (or blogger) can do by themselves.
6) It's hard to get too worked up about the Houston mayor's race because, though I'd prefer John Whitmire have not won, Sheila Jackson Lee couldn't have been a lamer, less inspiring choice. At least he's no longer in the senate to block air conditioning in prisons or drug-policy reforms that other red states enacted long ago. To paraphrase Jim Hightower, if God had intended us to vote, She'd have given us candidates.
Finally, here's my question: What do folks think are the main criminal-justice races to watch during the primaries? Obviously, the Harris and Travis DA races are big: An incumbent win in the latter would be a sanguine result, while an incumbent loss in the former would be an earth-rumbling victory. I haven't been watching the blow-by-blow in El Paso, but that DA's race seems like an important one, too. Beyond that, you tell me: Where's the drama this season?
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15 comments:
Thanks for the article on Scottie Walker. I hope you do write more about the Texas prison system's baseball teams. I couldn't tell from the story, was he actually in prison at that time, or was he basically a ringer for them? Thanks!
In prison, for sure. Life sentence for murder w/ malice! Idk details, yet. He got there in 1942 and was still playing in 1963, at age 68. John Hines was a tough character, too. Killed one of his teammates on the Chicago American Giants, served time for that in IL, got out, then sometime in the '40s ended up at the Ramsey unit (don't know why, yet) pitching in the prison league. Hines went to college at Wiley College in Marshall.
The Rio Grande has been drowning an average of a person a day since before September, but none of them were worth mentioning until they could be blamed on Abbott. You are right that there is no high ground.
What Phelps said. As Teddy Roosevelt said about William McKinley, Biden has the backbone of a chocolate eclair.
Agree with gadfly. Biden is weak and feckless. Julian Castro has urged him to nationalize the Texas National Guard, he has actions he COULD take, and could have taken earlier, but he's useless and awful.
@Phelps, who do you want to have mentioned it and what difference would have it made? Ppl have been talking about the drownings for many months: https://theintercept.com/2023/09/02/border-rio-grande-migrant-children-drowning/
I want the federal government to do something to stop the flow of people being trafficked by men who don't care if they live or drown once they've paid their fee, rather than just shrugging their shoulders and fishing out the corpses -- until they could blame it on Abbott, that is.
Abbott is doing what you want. This was the result. What do you suggest?
That the federal government throw in, and more importantly, we reinstitute the Remain in Mexico policy for asylum claims, which keeps people from trying to swim across in the first place.
There is a nominally independent prison ombudsman. Why isn't that working as well as it does in other states? In WA, the ombuds officer investigated the health care system and a few weeks after her report hit the Governor's desk, the DOC secretary took early retirement. At the Governor's request.
Are they not independent, not motivated, not empowered to inspect facilities, or what?
@Phelps, the federal government spends BILLIONS on border patrol, whom Texas officials are now obstructing. Not sure how much more they could possibly "throw in."
@1:06, all of the above. Not independent, not motivated, and not empowered.
What about Paxton against the CCA incumbents: Keller, Hervey, and Slaughter?
The feds pay billions on border patrol like Jeffrey Epstein paid millions for child care.
Grits, how the hell do you remain in Texas? The best thing I ever did in my life was leave Fort Worth, Texas in 2005 (the week after Katrina). I miss the food, but absolutely nothing else. The GQP has become the party of the insane with Texas being ground zero.
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