Rebel Texas Democrats to Hold Conference

From CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/21/texas.legislature.ap/

I don't know why it would be "brash" of Dems to ask for an investigation, particularly since this involved misuse of federal agencies. Plus, it stinks to high heaven.

I think it brash because it was their choice to slink out of town without explanation that started this mess.

And I reiterate that a request to an agency--which by ALL ACCOUNTS was denied--does not constitute misuse of that agency. It certainly constitutes an attempt, but not a misuse. Last I knew, they know exactly who made the request, and that it was denied, so--aside from whipping this for political gain--what is the purpose?

Scrat,

In your readings were you able to determine if the measures passed could be overturned after-the-fact if it became evident that no such attack occured?

The Fort Worth Star Telegram was the paper which uncovered the email demanding the destruction of the documents. Here's their story in today's edition:

A one-sentence order sent by e-mail on the morning of May 14 was apparently carried out, a DPS spokesman said Tuesday. The revelation comes as federal authorities are investigating how a division of the federal Homeland Security Department was dragged into the hunt for the missing Democrats -- at the request of the state police agency.

Addressed to "Captains," the order said: "Any notes, correspondence, photos, etc. that were obtained pursuant to the absconded House of Representative members shall be destroyed immediately. No copies are to be kept. Any questions please contact me."

It was signed by the commander of the DPS Special Crimes Service, L.C. "Tony" Marshall.

The head of a state House panel looking into law enforcement's role in the search expressed outrage at the order, obtained by the Star-Telegram under the Texas Open Records Act.

"That's unbelievable," said state Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, chairman of the House General Investigating Committee and one of the 51 Democrats who fled to Ardmore, Okla., during the walkout last week.

"I'm appalled. It would appear as though there is something to hide," Bailey said. "And based on some information we've been told inside DPS, it just concerns me more that there were some overzealous people inside the agency. The question is who was driving them so hard. I really am shocked that they would be destroying any internal information."

Bailey said the destruction of records "probably is a crime."

A Republican member of the House committee, state Rep. Dan Flynn of Van, said he found word of the document destruction disturbing but took a dim view of conducting a legislative investigation of the incident.

"If there is something that's being destroyed that's a public record, yeah, that would disturb me," Flynn said. But he said probing DPS' role in the search for the Democrats would be a "political football" best left to others.

"Of course if the speaker tells us to do it we'll go after it, but it just doesn't seem to be an issue that would be in the purview of what we're doing," Flynn said.

House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, recently said the investigating committee could look at the issue if it wanted to. It was Craddick who originally ordered the DPS to find the Democrats and return them to the state Capitol so that the House could achieve the quorum necessary to bring up a congressional redistricting bill. The boycott successfully killed that bill and others.

DPS spokesman Tom Vinger could not say Tuesday who, if anyone, gave Marshall the order to destroy records, but he said there was nothing inappropriate about it.

"The investigation was complete. Since this was not a criminal investigation, we feel it would be inappropriate to keep any files," he said. Asked if all the records created during the hunt for the missing Democrats were indeed destroyed, Vinger said, "To the best of my knowledge, yeah."
State law generally requires that records be kept for a certain period of time, but it was unclear late Tuesday how those guidelines would affect DPS' actions.

Angela Hale, spokeswoman for Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, said it would be a crime to destroy records that had been requested under the Texas Open Records Act. It could not be determined late Tuesday if there was a standing request for the records before they were destroyed.

Hale said destroying records before state guidelines allow it would not be within the purview of the attorney general.

Rob Wiley, past president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said it may not be a crime, but it is not how state agencies typically handle records.

"As a general rule, government agencies don't destroy records this quickly … that is very unusual," he said.

"A reasonable person would certainly believe that somebody thinks something ought to be hidden," Wiley said. "The likelihood was there was some kind of attempt to use the governmental processes for what was clearly a partisan political issue."

The destruction order first went out to the DPS captains at 9:39 a.m. May 14, a day before runaway Democrats began returning to Texas.

At 1 p.m. that day, the e-mail order was forwarded to an officer lower on the DPS command chain -- Lt. Will Crais. Federal officials and published reports have named Crais as the law enforcement officer who called for federal help in locating a plane owned by one of the missing Democrats.

The DPS would neither confirm nor deny that Crais was the one who called in the Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center, a division of Homeland Security based in Riverside, Calif. The federal agency, which normally tracks drug smugglers and terrorists, made some phone calls but never found the plane.

In a statement last week, the customs enforcement agency that oversees the interdiction center said it only became involved after the DPS indicated the Piper Cheyenne belonging to former Texas House Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, may have gone down.

More recently, the Homeland Security Department has declined to release tapes or transcripts of the conversations between DPS and the federal interdiction center.

In Washington on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge -- in an appearance before the House Select Committee on Homeland Security -- was asked why the information had not been released as requested by several Democratic members of Congress.

Ridge said he would review the denial to release the tapes but pointed to an investigation of the matter being conducted by the department's internal watchdog.

"We thought it was very appropriate, based on the multiple inquiries that we received from members of Congress . . . that we deploy the means with which Congress has given us, and that's an inspector-general within our department, Ridge said.

I was just going to post a link to that info, Tartarin. The plot thickens, eh?

I found none, but that does not mean that there are none.



By the way, this was not found within the rules of the Texas Legislature, but within a Texas statute.

And it appears that Clark Kent Ervin has removed himself from the investigation, finally acknowldeging the fact that he himself is too much involved with the republican party to be an impartial investigator. I suspect that nothing much will come of this - except for what remains in peoples' memories. And going by most of the Texas papers' editorials I have read, and a lot of publicized cheering, the hoorays go more to the Texas democrats. Apparently DeLay is not a popular man anywhere, although he has his uses. He did want to be speaker of the House, but the repubs wouldn't go for him.

Brash, tartarin, is, like most words, in the ear of the beholder. Brash is to the republicans "how dare you think of questioning us." Brash to the democrats is the willful effort on the part of the republicans to change a legally drawn up and accepted redistricted map. Although the republicans are trying a lot of smoke and mirrors about this, they still haven't presented a legally acceptable plan on why the map should be changed. Except, of course, that they want to add more seats. This becomes plainer every time somebody presents a copy of the map re-drawn by DeLay. The thing is, it becomes plainer to the voters involved, too.

Since I was the one who used the term, I'm more than happy to define it for you...

"Brash" in this instance is calling for an investigation of the actions taken as a result of actions you took which at a minimum constituted a knowing and willful malfeasance of office.

Oh, and if a majority are cheering this in Texas, then why are the majority of representatives there Republicans? I don't doubt that the media may be giving the majority of coverage to those who are cheering, but that's not the same thing, now is it?

Well, a plurality of Americans voted for Gore in 2000, Scrat, so let's not get too hung up on which party controls the Texas legislature as a determinant of how people really feel about what the Democrats did the other week.

Dart - Are you claiming that Texas uses an electoral college to select its representatives?

Well, it's like the Senate filibusters. 60 votes are needed to break one - the republicans hold the majority there.

And Gore went into the Florida count holding not only the majority of the public vote, but also - at that point - of the electoral college count. Sometimes it takes shenanigans to make those changes, and shenanigans don't always disappear from the public awareness.

To everything, spin, spin, spin.

No, is that what it seemed I said? I was drawing an analogy, mon ami...

Since a plurality of the vote means nothing in a federal election, I assumed you were claiming that the same is true in Texas. If, as I suspect, Texas elects representatives based on the popular vote, then it does seem to follow that the majority of voters there voted Republican.

There is talk of a Watergate type of coverup involving the Republicans' handling of the search for the missing Dems. Apparently the only real law breakers here are the Repubs, since they have gotten the related documents "destroyed immediately."

Edgar -- I've just been reviewing the reports in the Fort Worth Star Telegram (the first paper to get the info on the destruction of documents) and the Austin American Statesman (located in the jurisdiction in which the case will be investigated -- though it's also being taken up by the House Judiciary Committee in DC). Having been one of them not long ago, I can tell you that the Dems in Austin are both steamed and elated because they've got an issue which could do some real harm to the state Republicans. The matter will be handled in the Travis Country District Attorney's office where there are some seriously tenacious lawyers. I suspect there will be some Roving on this (he's noted for his really dirty tricks in Austin) and the issue could get killed. But if it's not, it might be the tool which opens up a huge can of worms...

There are simply no words for the level of hubris it takes to break the rules and undermine the very system of government you are sworn to work within, then attempt to gain political advantage by worrymongering over the way the opposition responded to your actions!

If you think there is something to investigate, fine. Do it. But this is openly being exploited for political gain and that, given the genesis of the issue, is beyond belief and beneath contempt.

I've realized for some time that there was nothing sacred to some liberals, nothing they won't do to win, but I had previously assumed that these people were a minority among the liberal minority in our society. It seems I was deluded in that optimistic assessment of those on the far left.

The guy who picks through my garbage on Monday morning is a Democrat.

"There are simply no words for the level of hubris it takes to break the rules and undermine the very system of government you are sworn to work within, then attempt to gain political advantage by worrymongering over the way the opposition responded to your actions!" Really excellent, Scrat! We're always looking for new ways to describe the Bush administration.

"The guy who picks through my garbage on Monday morning is a Democrat." We were looking at it, fascinated by the amount and content. We Dems recycle, have been doing so for years, so we look at people who put garbage out on the street as, well, a little behind the times...

Tart, I do recycle, and that is what attracts these bums. It makes it easier for them to find what they're looking for.