The Texas Observer

Update (see below)
NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed Barack Obama for president today. “Sen. Obama has a fully pro-choice record, and we are confident that as president he will be a champion for women’s reproductive rights,” the organization formerly known simply as NARAL wrote on its Web site (you can view a video explaining the endorsement on the site as well).

The endorsement elicited an immediate rebuke from Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY’s List, which supports women candidates.

“I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton - who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade - to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process,” Malcolm said in a statement. “It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them.”

EMILY’s List has, not surprisingly, endorsed Clinton. The group has given her campaign $323,567; Clinton’s fifth-biggest donor. And Malcolm stumped for Clinton around the state before the Texas primary.

Update: 

Some of NARAL’s state affiliates are angry about the Obama endorsement. The Texas affiliate is among those backing away. Here’s the statement form NARAL Pro-Choice Texas: “This decision was made internally by NARAL Pro-Choice America, based in Washington D.C., and without the consultation of the NARAL state affiliates across the country, including NARAL Pro-Choice Texas…..we will not be issuing an endorsement of a Presidential candidate. When a pro-choice nominee for President is named, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas will stand proudly with that pro-choice candidate.”

The Obama campaign held a conference call this morning to echo what even most pundits said last night — that their candidate has all but sealed up the nomination.

Obama Strategist David Plouffe said Obama netted 13 delegates last night. He gained 17 in his sweep of North Carolina and limited Hillary Clinton to a win of four delegates in Indiana. That more than erases Clinton’s haul from Pennsylvania. Plouffe said Obama now leads Clinton by 172 pledged delegates (that’s the non-superdelegate kind) — the biggest advantage of the campaign. “A high water mark,” he termed it. Obama is within 172 delegates of clinching the nomination (ahem, superdelegates, please pick up the white courtesy phone).

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, one of five prominent elected Democrats who joined Plouffe on the call, described Obama’s performance last night a “giant and decisive step” toward the nomination.

One reporter asked if the campaign expected Obama to be “Swift Boated” in the fall. This seems to be a recurring fear among Democrats — that Obama will wilt under GOP attacks. Plouffe responded that Obama’s better-than-expected performance last night following a month of controversy shows that “Sen. Obama has a toughness and an ability to deal with adversity that will serve him well in the general election.”

Kerry, Mr. Swift Boat himself, chimed in with an important and oft-forgotten fact of 2004: that the Kerry campaign didn’t have the resources in August of 2004 to respond to the Swift Boat attacks. Because the Democratic National Convention was so early and the GOP’s so late, the Kerry campaign faced five weeks in which it had to conserve general election funds for October. This time, not only will Obama — like “all Democrats everywhere” — learn from Kerry’s mistakes and respond quickly, but Obama also won’t have the financial constraints of his predecessor.

Earlier this morning, the Clinton campaign held its own conference call in which they disclosed that Clinton had lent her campaign $6.4 million. Nonetheless, Howard Wolfson, her campaign spokesman said there had been zero discussion about whether to drop out. Asked if Clinton should end her campaign, the elected officials on the Obama call demurred. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said, “There is a sincere respect for Hillary Clinton in this campaign… This is her decision.”

McCaskill then added, “We’re confident that she is going to do the right thing for the Democratic Party.”

Does Texas’ Child Protective Services have the legal authority to remove 463 children from the FLDS ranch in West Texas? Some lawyers representing the mothers and the removed children say that CPS is stretching its legal authority in this case.

Thirty-eight of the FLDS mothers filed an appeal with the Third District Court of Appeals in Austin on April 30th. They want the appellate court to return their kids. The mothers, represented by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, contend that CPS and District Judge Barbara Walther — in seizing the children — violated the families’ due process rights.

At a hearing on April 17, CPS offered evidence of abuse against about 20 kids — and then argued that all 463 children were in danger. After that hearing, Judge Walther ruled the state could take custody of the kids.

In their brief to the appellate court, the FLDS mothers argue that the legal process at the April 17 hearing was a mess. They say they received no notice about the hearing, that some of the mothers weren’t even named in court papers, and filings weren’t made available to their attorneys, and that the courtroom was so full, most mothers weren’t even present when the custody of their kids was debated. They also argue that CPS didn’t present specific evidence to prove abuse against most of the mothers.

There is evidence that teen-aged girls were sexually abused at the ranch by older men. A CPS spokesperson says that 31 teen-age girls (ages 14-17) removed from the compound are either pregnant or have a child. Six of those girls have two kids. And two girls 17 or under have three kids. (Under Texas law, forcing a 15 year old to have sex with an older man is sexual abuse.)

Should evidence of abuse against a few families implicate everyone?

The short answer is yes. The Texas Family Code gives CPS the right to remove children in potentially abusive homes, even if they haven’t been abused yet. For example, if a mother doesn’t remove her children from a dangerous home, all the kids will be taken by CPS — even those who weren’t abused.

You can read the relevant sections of the family code here.

The law — specifically section 262 — says that a child should be removed if he or she would be in danger with the parent or guardian or if “continuation of the child in the home would be contrary to the child’s welfare.”

The key word there is “home.” The FLDS families lived on the same ranch, but in separate houses. The lawyers we’ve talked to who’ve been on the property all describe a town-like setting of separate houses and duplexes that are 1,000 to 1,500 feet apart.

These kids didn’t necessarily live in the same homes where abuse was taking place. CPS can’t remove a child just because they live next door to an abusive home. Some lawyers involved in the case believe CPS has stretched its legal authority here.

Of course this isn’t your typical subdivision. The families are all connected through a single religious sect. So does living in a tight-knit community in which kids are abused put all children at risk? The courts will have to untangle that one.

Democrat Rick Noriega’s campaign for U.S. Senate received a huge boost this morning. A new poll from Rasmussen shows Noriega within four percentage points of Republican incumbent John Cornyn (47 percent to 43 percent). The margin of error is 4 percentage points. (Hat tip to Quorum Report.)

The numbers are sure to change in the six months leading to Election Day. But the poll may help Noriega raise the campaign money he so desperately needs. Cornyn has nearly $9 million on hand – compared to just $329,000 for Noriega, according to their latest campaign filings. To have any chance of pulling the upset in November, Noriega will have to raise about $10 million. He must convince not only big donors in Texas, but perhaps more importantly, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that Cornyn is beatable. The DSCC will likely decide this summer which races it will endorse as worthy of investment both by the committee and its extensive network of donors.

For Noriega, he couldn’t have asked for anything better than the first sentence of the Rasmussen analysis:

“It’s time to add United States Senator John Cornyn to the list of potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents in Election 2008.”

On Tuesday, Austin Democrats will elect a new district attorney for the first time in 30 years.

Long-time DA Ronnie Earle is retiring, and the original four-candidate field has been winnowed to two: Rosemary Lehmberg and Mindy Montford. Both work in Earle’s office. With no Republican in the race, the winner of Tuesday’s runoff election will be the next DA.

Why should all Texans care about a local DA’s race?

The office is charged with investigating corruption in state politics — the beat cop of Texas politics. It’s one of the most powerful elected positions in the state. Here’s our dispatch on the race from January.

The race has become heated in recent days. Montford, who has a significant money edge, has blanketed Austin airwaves with ads promising a tougher approach to prosecuting criminals than under Earle’s regime (in which Lehmberg has been a long-time second in command).

Lehmberg has responded by portraying Montford as beholden to the corporate lobby and some state legislators — the very people she would have to investigate in office.

In fact, Montford raised some eyebrows in January when she told the Observer she wanted a closer relationship with lawmakers.

“We’ve got to educate the Legislature and the lobby that, ‘Look you’ve got nothing to be afraid of if you’re following the law.’ We’re not on a witch hunt here,” she said. “I think you have to be visible and have constant meetings with people who could be before you as a witness or a suspect, and let them know how the unit operates. Then they will trust what you do, and they won’t care what political party you are. It’s going to the Capitol and meeting. You’ve got to be able to be welcomed down there. It obviously wouldn’t be possible to meet with every elected official, but it wouldn’t be bad to have a forum where we explain to them how the process works and ask them what improvements they want to see.”

Montford has received significant contributions from corporate interests and major Texas lobbyists (some with Republican ties), according to her campaign finance filings at the county clerk’s office

She’s raised $564,362 for the race. The largest share comes from Dolph Briscoe, the rancher and former Texas governor, who’s contributed a stunning $120,000 to Montford. She’s also received checks from businessman and San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt ($2,000), lobbyists Stan Schlueter ($1,000) and David Sibley ($250), and from construction magnate H.B. Zachry ($1,000), whose Zachry Construction firm holds contracts to build the controversial the Trans-Texas Corridor. Top executives at AT&T, where Montford’s father is a top lobbyist, contributed at least $5,000.

Then there’s Herbert Kelleher, chair of the board of Southwest Airlines, who chipped in $750. You know you’re connected when the chairman of a major company contributes to your campaign for county office.

When asked about lobby contributions, Montford has pointed out that her opponents — and Lehmberg in particular — have received huge donations from law firms. And that too could be a conflict of interest. Lehmberg has raised $302,250 for the race. This includes numerous contributions from the defense bar, including $5,000 from high-powered attorney Roy Minton (a self-avowed Liberal who defended Tom Craddick) and $10,000 from Minton’s firm.

Lehmberg’s contributors are also generally more progressive, including long-time Democratic consultant George Shipley ($5,000), the interest group Progressive Action ($5,000) and the national Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund ($10,000).

Organizers at the Senate District 10 convention in Fort Worth have coaxed proceedings to move in the right direction — though the process is agonizingly slow. And more than a few delegates are reaching their wit’s end.

We reported earlier this afternoon that the SD 10 convention featured mass confusion. For half the day, it seemed, delegates milled around with little clue of what was transpiring or even what was supposed to transpire.

By 3:30, most delegates had signed in. But the drama didn’t end. The convention still had too many folks signing in as delegates — by several hundred. Organizers planned for each precinct to re-caucus to winnow down their delegates to the correct number. At the same time, the precincts would nominate their delegates for the state convention.

By 4 p.m., the credentials committee was under siege from delegates and precinct chairs demanding their paperwork so they could re-caucus, and by angry delegates with various credential issues. Tarrant Co. Sheriff deputies were called in to clear the room. Officers then stood guard to keep delegates out of the credential committee room — ostensibly so the committee volunteers could finish their work. (They also refused to allow this reporter in the room.)

Tarrant County Democratic officials say they’ve been doing the best they can under the strain of handling the crush of delegates. The county party had neither the money nor work force of its own to accommodate the size of the convention and all the attendant problems — without help from the state party. Some organizers here said the state party was little help at all.

Meanwhile, out in the arena, delegates — some of whom had waited for six and seven hours — were staging a mini-revolt. They grabbed microphones and peppered the convention chair — who was reading proposed convention resolutions — with angry comments and parliamentary inquiries. “A lot of us are getting fed up with the lack of organization of this thing,” shouted one delegate into a mic. Eventually, the chair had to stop recognizing speakers, though pissed off delegates kept shouting into microphones set up around the arena … until the mics were turned off.

(Such hostility must have been slightly unnerving for party officials considering the Fort Worth Gun Show was taking place in an adjacent building.)

As evening approached, the process was at least moving along and there was an end in sight, though the convention was likely to last late into the night.

And not everyone had lost their patience. “I think it’s going just fine,” said first-time delegate Eric Green as he stood at the rail of the arena’s second deck watching the reading of resolutions (all 56 of them). He said that given the huge number of delegates, the delays weren’t surprising. “From everything I was hearing, I had everything in order so that I could be here all day. We knew how it was when we went to the primary election. There is really no reason to expect anything different. [Delegates] should have had it already in their minds that, at the convention, patience was really going to be a virtue….I’m just enjoying it. It’s a trip.”

Things aren’t exactly running smoothly at today’s convention for Democratic delegates in Tarrant County’s Senate District 10.

The convention is being held in the rodeo arena at the Will Rogers Coliseum in downtown Fort Worth. Nearly 4,000 Democrats have piled into the stands rimming the dirt rodeo floor. The setting seems rather appropriate: party officials and convention volunteers — in bopping around trying to deal with a dizzying number of problems — remind one of bull riders holding on for dear life.

The convention — the second in a three-step process to select the remaining 67 delegates in the Democratic Party presidential primary-caucus hybrid — was supposed to begin at 9:30 this morning. As of 1:30, the actual convention still hadn’t started, and frustrated delegates were wedged into a narrow hallway still trying to sign in.

The breakdowns are almost too numerous to list. The first major issue was limited parking. The Will Rogers complex is also hosting a horse show and a gun show today. So Democratic delegates in Volvos with Hillary and Obama bumper stickers had to compete for parking spaces with heavy duty pickups with gun racks.

Once inside, delegates waited all morning listening to time-killing speeches while the credentials committee tried to sort through the various logistical messes and some of the delegate challenges. As we reported yesterday, Tarrant County party officials have been struggling with their delegate list all week. Senate District 10 has hundreds of delegates more than it should. The challenge was compiling an accurate list of delegates. There seems to have been major confusion about whether local officials or the state party would create the delegate list used to check people when they sign in.

County Party Chair Art Brender said the list he got from the state party was unusable — it mistakenly listed many Clinton supporters for Obama and vice-versa. After that list was tossed, local officials have been organizing on the fly. The results have been predictable: delegates unable to sign in because their names aren’t on the list or their paperwork is missing, and, for some precincts, sign-in lists disappeared and had to be redone.

In the arena’s front hallway, delegates crowded together, waiting to sign in at make-shift tables. No one seemed to know what was going on.

By mid-morning, hours after the convention was supposed to start, Brender sat at a table in the frenetic, cacophonous hallway discussing the problems, hoping the sign in would begin soon. Before he could explain to the Observer what was happening, he was told that some tables had started signing in delegates from certain precincts prematurely (and without convention credentials to hand out) and wouldn’t stop when asked. “OK,” Brender sighed and was off to deal wit that issue. Brender is retiring as county party chair in two months. On this day, that probably can’t come soon enough.

The palpable excitement among delegates this morning at the sight of such a large gathering of Democrats — perhaps the biggest in Tarrant County in decades — was soon replaced by growing anger and frustration.

In a back room on the arena’s second floor, the credentials committee members (all volunteers) dashed around, stacks of paper in hand, trying to answer questions from many first-time delegates and solve one mini-problem after another. Eventually, a make-shift table was set up in the hall outside the credential committee room to catalog complaints and challenges. Delegates soon crowded the hall and pressed against the table.

The biggest challenge was generating an accurate list of delegates so each precinct could sign in. The sign-in is the most important aspect of the convention because the percentages of Obama and Clinton supporters who sign in will determine the number of delegates each candidate sends to the state convention in June (the third and final step in the process).

The sign in finally began at 11:30 and is expected to continue for hours. Meanwhile, party leaders and elected officials pleaded with delegates not to leave. By mid-afternoon, it appeared that many were sticking it out.

Ain’t democracy grand?

“This is embarrassing,” said one frustrated Obama delegate. “This is embarrassing for Tarrant County.”

More to come…