Another person with no experience in the military whatsoever, eager to meddle with the Military Justice System. It is important that Texas set an example for all of those other States by imposing the most draconian sentences possible on anyone who dares not show up for an involuntary recall issued thirty years after they received their honorary discharge.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
One Weekend a Month, Two Weeks a Year, Five Years in Jail
Sometimes our legislators don’t even know what’s in their own bills. This morning, Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Van) discussed his House Bill 1165 before the Defense & Veterans Affairs Committee and it was evident that he hadn’t read - or maybe didn’t understand - what all was in it.
Flynn told the committee that HB 1165 would simply “make some necessary updates to the Texas Code of Military Justice,” the body of state law that covers Texas National Guardsmen when they are under the command of the governor, not the president. When soldiers are on weekend drills, for instance, or are deployed to the border by Perry, they are covered by the TCMJ. If they’re deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, they’re covered by the federal Uniform Code of Military Justice.
In 2006, Rep. Dan Flynn was inducted into the volunteer Texas State Guard as a Maritime Regiment Public Relations Officer
Flynn said the bill was limited to changes made to statutes governing nonjudicial punishment, the disciplinary procedures commanding officers use to punish soldiers rather than resort to a court-martial. NJP - frequently called an Article 15 - can involve extra duty, confinement to base, forfeiture of pay, and the like.
“I don’t think there have been any changes for something like 30 years,” said Flynn.
In fact, while the bill does alter NJP procedures, the most significant changes - mentioned by no one on the committee, including Flynn - pertain to courts-martial, the military equivalent of criminal trials. HB 1165 would create the harshest maximum penalties of any state in the nation for courts-martial, imposing up to five years in jail and $10,000 in fines on Texas airmen and soldiers. Most states have jail sentences of no more than six months and fines of a few hundred dollars. At present, the max under the TCMJ is one year and $1,000.
And it wasn’t thirty years ago that the TCMJ was last tinkered with. Just two sessions ago, in 2005, the Lege passed a bill that made changes to NJP and bumped up court-martial sentences.
This morning, Chairman Frank Corte said he remembered maybe Rick Noriega passing something like that a while back. Actually, Corte was the sponsor of the House version of the 2005 legislation.
Texas Guardsmen are rarely court-martialed under the TCMJ (David Counts, the top JAG in Texas told me in March that he thought there were no more than two per year). Still, the TCMJ allows for courts-martial for offenses such as “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” and using “contemptuous words against the governor.”
Military law is certainly difficult to understand. But is it too much to ask that Flynn had actually read and understood his own bill? After all, we are talking here about the possibility of putting Guardsmen in prison for five years.
HB 1165 was left pending because key witnesses from the Texas National Guard hadn’t shown up yet.
Another elitist standard: that legislators will actually read and understand bills they introduce.
Federal law enforcement agencies to install license number plate reading cameras on Texas highways. This technique already in widespread use in surveillance- Britain - that is very powerful, enabling the government to automatically photograph the license plates of moving vehicles and check the information against databases…
It creates a situation where the highest ranking officer in the state must take action on a relatively insignificant disciplinary issue.
Coming to a Texas highway near you: License plate readers
Deep in the Senate's version of the massive TXDoT bill is a provision that, if not stripped out in conference committee, will allow local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to install license plate reading cameras on Texas highways. The technology - already in widespread use in surveillance-crazy Britain - is very powerful, enabling the government to automatically photograph the license plates of moving vehicles and check the information against databases. If the system finds a "match," officers can be alerted.
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Senate Bill 690: Trimming the Grassroots
Karen Hall’s knees still haven’t recovered from gathering signatures door-to-door for an amendment to Bryan’s city charter. “Democracy is a messy business,” she says, “but we like it.”
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Women to Watch: Rep. Kristi Thibaut, D-Houston
After she lost her first campaign for a House seat from Houston in 2006, Kristi Thibaut showed up in Austin anyway. What she encountered, as she lobbied unsuccessfully for lower utility rates with fellow ACORN activists, was almost enough to make her wonder why she'd wanted that seat in the first place.
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One Weekend a Month, Two Weeks a Year, Five Years in Jail
Sometimes our legislators don't even know what's in their own bills. This morning, Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Van) discussed his House Bill 1165 before the Defense & Veterans Affairs Committee and it was evident that he hadn't read - or maybe didn't understand - what all was in it.
Continue reading »
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