Free Republic

GOP-backed measures moving through the Legislature combine to give the governor's office, with its constitutionally limited duties, the most unprecedented infusion of power seen in a century. While some call the measures an unwarranted, sweeping power shift, others said the bills give the governor added authority that naturally flows from streamlining and limiting government – movements prompted by a $9.9 billion budget shortfall. Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, chairman of the Government Reform Committee, said the governor deserves and should get more direct authority. As committee chairman, he wrote a 412-page bill that would provide governors with new powers. He said...

Texas' current system of judicial elections is a 153-year-old right that empowers the people to choose who will interpret our laws and make crucial decisions affecting our lives, liberty and property. For more than a century, Texans enjoyed this right under the majority rule of the Democrat Party. Now, as Republicans have gained the complete control of all facets of state government for the first time in modern history, the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court wants to take away that 153-year old right by creating an appointment/retention system. Under the appointment/retention system, Texans would not be able to...

Beyond their Texas residency and sunny dispositions, Padron and Hunt have little in common. But both are busy adapting their calculations about the future to accommodate a five-year-old state law under which the top 10 percent of every high school's graduating seniors are automatically eligible for admission to public universities in Texas. Now, as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether to rule on the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions, Texas's law is being scrutinized as a model that could replace the explicitly race-based admissions criteria that have been a feature of public education for decades. Following the Texas...

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller is proposing an anti-discrimination ordinance that would offer gays and lesbians protection in hiring, housing and public accommodations such as hotels and restaurants. Ms. Miller said Saturday that the ordinance would go beyond the city's current protections against discrimination in its hiring and employment practices. Under the proposed ordinance, employers with more than 15 workers would not be allowed to hire, fire or in any other way discriminate against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Proprietors of hotels, theaters and other public places would not be able to refuse service or segregate their patrons. Violations...

Pre-Hispanic ritual and New Wave fads at Mexican pyramidBy Jan McGirk in Mexico CityThe Independent, 23 March 2002 More than a million Mexicans jostled with shamans and charlatans to mount the ancient Pyramid of the Sun, 30 miles from Mexico City, at dawn on Thursday. The huge step-pyramid at Teotihuacan, twinned with the Pyramid of the Moon, annually draws throngs of sun-worshippers and geomancers dressed in white, with red sashes knotted over the solar plexus or binding their temples. Since the millennium, turn-out has soared. There are bricklayers and backpackers, chambermaids and chartered accountants, but the majority seem to be...

Nolan Ryan joins Sharp campaignBy JOHN MORITZ Star-Telegram 03/22/02 AUSTIN -- Texas baseball legend and Republican activist Nolan Ryan will be pitching for Democrat John Sharp this year, heading a committee to put the former state comptroller into the lieutenant governor's office. Ryan, a Hall of Fame right-hander who has been a loyal ally of Republican President George W. Bush, will officially join Sharp's team today, the Democrat's campaign confirmed Thursday. "No candidate in Texas is better qualified to guide the state through the current budget challenges than John," Ryan said in a news release announcing the formation of Republican...

U.S. officials not sure if action is response to steel tariffs By Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, 03/08/02 JACKSON, Miss. -- U.S. agriculture officials aren't sure why Russia has decided to ban American poultry imports. But it's clear, they say, that the ban couldn't have come at a worse time. Many chicken producers in the Southeast are only now recovering from plummeting sales that resulted when Russia stopped importing U.S. poultry in 1998 because of its economic collapse. The loss of business had forced some chicken companies to close. Today, the U.S. poultry industry employs people in 38 states, and half ...

High court reviews limits on judges' election speech Case could reshape judicial campaigns; most states tell candidates not to announce their views By Scott Shepard Austin American-Statesman, Washington Bureau Friday, February 22, 2002 WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is reviewing whether a state can limit what judicial candidates may say while running for office, an issue that could change the way judges are elected throughout the country. "This is big, even though voter interest is probably infinitesimal," said Allison Zieve, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation who filed a "friend of the court" brief in the case. The basic issue ...

LAREDO — The number of undocumented immigrants arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border plunged 45 percent in the past four months compared with the same period last year, leaving experts wondering why fewer people are trying to cross. It could be fear of the Border Patrol's "green fist," terrorist attacks or a slumping economy. No one knows for sure. The agency made 181,497 arrests from October through January — the fewest for a four-month period in at least 17 years, according to computerized records dating to 1985, the earliest available. "Something is going on," said Rogelio Nuñez of Proyecto Libertad, ...

Labour plans to overturn principle of a free NHS By Ben Russell, The Independent, 07 February 2002 Secret Labour proposals to water down the founding principles of the NHS by proposing a health service providing only "largely comprehensive services", "overwhelmingly free at the point of use" are contained in a policy document leaked to The Independent. The highly controversial moves, which appear to open up the possibility of new limits on NHS services and raise the prospect of charges for some patients who are able to afford them, are contained in a draft discussion paper prepared by a policy commission ...

Give addicts free heroin, says chief constable By Jason Bennetto Crime Correspondent, The Independent, 04 February 2002 A chief constable has called for heroin to be prescribed free to Britain's 300,000 addicts. Richard Brunstrom, the head of North Wales Police, wants heroin possession to be decriminalised and people caught with small quantities of the drug to be treated. His comments are the latest proposal by a senior police officer for a more liberal approach to drug use. Mr Brunstrom said pure heroin should be provided on prescription for addicts, because that would remove the need for users to commit crime ...

There is no subject more interesting to every man than the subject of government. His security, be he rich or poor, and in a great measure his prosperity, are connected therewith; it is therefore his interest as well as his duty to make himself acquainted with its principles, and what the practise ought to be. Every art and science, however imperfectly known at first, has been studied, improved and brought to what we call perfection by the progressive labors of succeeding generations; but the science of government has stood still. No improvement has been made in the principle and scarcely ...

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30 — In a sign of the kind of expenses many states may soon face, a California state prison inmate has received a heart transplant that is likely to cost taxpayers here close to $1 million. The federal courts have held for years that inmates cannot be denied medical care just because they are incarcerated, and prisoners here and in other states have received other organ transplants, like livers and kidneys. But experts said they believed that the California case was the first successful heart transplant for an inmate, yet probably not the last. The nation's prison ...

Parents can find out sex of foetus after three weeks By Charles Arthur, Independent, 30 January 2002 Blood tests may soon be able to inform pregnant mothers whether they are carrying a boy or a girl less than three weeks into their pregnancy. New research has found that it is possible to tell almost from the start of pregnancy whether the foetus is male or female, based on the levels of a hormone called called human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) in the mother's blood. "We've discovered that levels were increased as early as 16 days after fertilisation," said Dr Yuval Yaron, ...

Will new immigrant voters be swinging 2002 state elections? By Carlos Guerra, San Antonio Express-News, 01/24/2002 As Texas' 2002 election cycle kicks into gear, campaign professionals in both parties are nervously eyeing a mysterious voter group...Before 1990, Mexicans were among the foreigners least likely to seek naturalization, but during the '90s this began to change. Not long after large numbers started winning their amnesty, they became eligible to begin the naturalization process. Group plans Spanish voter guide By Associated Press, El Paso Times, 01/24/02 SAN ANTONIO -- For the first time, the League of Women Voters of Texas plans to ...

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Gov. Gray Davis has proposed strict staffing rules in hospitals that would mandate the number of nurses assigned to each patient.</p> <p>The new rules, which still must go through a normal regulatory review process, would make California the first state in the nation to set minimum nurse staffing levels.</p>

PHOENIX, Jan. 22 — He was on the phone with a detective on Dec. 14, providing more information about how his accomplices had stolen a large shipment of human growth hormone. Suddenly, the detective heard a loud scream. Then the phone went silent. That was the last contact Tom Britt of the Phoenix Police Department had with Konstantin Simberg before Mr. Simberg's body turned up two days later and 100 miles northwest of Phoenix, in Yavapai County. For now, three men from the Phoenix area have been indicted on charges of kidnapping and murdering Mr. Simberg, a 21-year-old Russian immigrant, ...

Texas first in number of taxing districts in nation, newspaper reports Associated Press, Longview News-Journal, 12/31/01 DALLAS (AP) — Texas leads the nation in the number of special taxing districts, where private developers effectively get government powers, such as the ability to levy taxes for roads and sewers, the Dallas Morning News reported Sunday. Citing U.S. Census figures, the newspaper reported the greatest concentration of such districts in Texas was the Houston area. Across the nation, the districts are created to handle everything from road and sewer construction to crop irrigation, flood control and fire protection. Sixty years ago, there ...

Is Government the Good Guy? By John D. Donahue, NY Times, 12/13/01 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The market defines America. Labor markets organize our work; consumer markets structure our spending; securities markets shape our future. The idea of the market dominates our mythology: Americans are open to "market solutions" to public problems, from providing housing to improving education — especially with a fumbling, inefficient government program cast as the alternative. Now this mythology may be changing. After 50 years of market ascendancy, government may be poised to reclaim its role as an integral and admirable part of American life. Whether it ...

Perry leads Sanchez, Texas Poll indicates By JAY ROOT, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12/08/01 AUSTIN - Republican Gov. Rick Perry has never enjoyed higher approval ratings and would crush Democrat Tony Sanchez if the two candidates faced off in an election today, the latest Scripps-Howard Texas Poll says. Perry's approval ratings rose to 67 percent, his all-time high. Registered voters in the survey favored Perry over Sanchez 48 percent to 18 percent. The poll, conducted for the Star-Telegram and other media outlets, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.