Carroll G. Robinson
A New Era of Interposition and Nullification —The GOP’s Sinister Agenda
For the past several decades, Republican legislators across our nation have been engaged in a systematic, and modern era attempt at Interposition and Nullification; from abortion rights to civil and voting rights to the denial of equal protection under the law for the LGBTQ+ community.
Republican justices, on the United States Supreme Court, have also been active contributors to this retrogression with their gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and their refusal to acknowledge the reality that extreme partisan gerrymandering is in fact race based voter suppression. Then, there is the Court’s Republican majority’s continual chipping away at the fundamental underpinning of Roe v. Wade and the right of women to control their own health care decisions.
These things must not be allowed to happen. This is why voting rights matter and Republicans are trying to suppress them all across our nation. They have a sinister agenda.
There is even a broader nationwide effort underway by Republican state legislators and conservative activists, supported by Governor Greg Abbott, to call a new federal constitutional convention to rewrite the United States Constitution to eliminate the Voting Rights Act, rig the Electoral College, get rid of background checks and other reasonable and responsible gun safety requirements as well as Social Security, Medicare and end the remaining protections of Roe v. Wade. These things must not be allowed to happen. This is why voting rights matter and Republicans are trying to suppress them all across our nation. They have a sinister agenda.
Republican legislators, in Texas, are right now hard at work this legislative session trying to deny women the right to choose and to undercut their ability to control their own bodies and health care choices.
Texas Republican state legislators are also hard at work trying to undermine the voting rights of Texans and our right to privacy in the voting booth as we cast our ballot to elect our public officials who will govern us. This is just two legislative sessions after Republican legislators tried to pass the Texas bathroom bill to deny transgender Texans their rights.
Where are all the corporations who stood up and spoke out against the bathroom bill in 2017 and just recently promised not to donate to Republicans after the January 6 insurrection at our nation’s capitol? Those are the same Republicans in Texas, Georgia and all across our nation trying to undermine democracy because Joe Biden was elected President of the United States.
In this instance, silence is not golden. It’s bordering on capitulation to forces drawing from the dark past of our nation’s history.
If corporate Texas (and America) won’t speak up now, who do they expect to speak up for them when their rights come under attack? Corporate leaders need to remember that they too-their companies-are also protected by The Civil War Amendments, specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment.
The rights-and lives-of Black, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, Women, low income, LGBTQ+, senior citizens and disabled Texans must matter-not only to law enforcement-but also to Texas corporate leaders and all our elected officials.
For corporate America and Texas, caring about the Black community and our right to vote, our civil liberties (and equitable access to prosperity) must go beyond philanthropic contributions and pledges to diversity after outrage and protests about police shootings and the murders of unarmed Black women, men and children.
Black America needs corporate leaders to once again speak out and stand up right now. We can’t wait.
People in Texas and all across America need help right now to protect us, our democracy and our civil rights and civil liberties from a national right wing, and white supremacy, public policy agenda.
For democracy to work and progress to be achieved and sustained, Republican state legislators cannot be allowed to drag our state and nation backwards to the era of interposition and nullification to appease the egos and delusions of any one man and his regressive supporters.
What we are all being reminded in Texas (and Georgia) and all across our nation, is that winning the White House and Congress is not enough. Today’s Democrats must also win statewide and legislative majorities in southern and mid-western states as well as making sure we hold on to the offices we now control and expand our majorities in the United States House and Senate.
Democratic Senators in DC must eliminate the filibustering of civil rights and voting rights legislation.
In Texas, Democrats must remind Texans that we are the party of rural electrification, modernization, real tax relief (thanks to Bob Bullock and Rodney Ellis), utility bill relief, champions of our schools and universities and the party that made Texas the energy capitol of the world and will make it a modern and inclusive Texas; the new global economic engine of the world built on innovation in energy, agriculture, medicine, education, transportation, construction, manufacturing and a new ethos of an opportunity to do better for all Texans.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
Carroll G. Robinson
Right-leaning Texas Supreme Court might be empowering Governor Abbott’s excesses
What is happening in Texas right now is much more than a simple partisan political battle. Texas Democrats are at ground zero in the fight for the future of not just our state, but also our nation.
Texas Republicans are not only at the forefront of their party’s national efforts to suppress the vote in support of the “Big Lie” but to also help lay the groundwork to undermine the 2024 presidential election and to help eliminate telling the truth about American history and its present day impacts.
Not only are Texas Republicans doing all they can to corrupt our political process, they have also spent years warping the Texas judiciary.
We now have Republican state judges in Texas saying that it is constitutional for the Governor to defund the other two branches of state government. Essentially, the Republican Texas Supreme Court has now said that the Texas Governor is a king.
What is going to happen to the rule of law in Texas when the Governor decides that he disagrees with the Texas judiciary and it is no longer needed and he defunds it? This is the door that Republican judges on the Texas Supreme Court have just kicked wide open in their obsessive commitment to partisan judicial making in support of the partisan political agenda of Texas and national Republicans.
We need a better Texas Supreme Court.
We need a better Texas Supreme Court.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
In the next few months Harris County Commissioners Court will be appointing a new sheriff once current Sheriff Ed Gonzales is confirmed by the United States Senate to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Hopefully, we make history in Harris County and get the first Black Sheriff in county history. Regardless of who Commissioners end up selecting, I want to encourage them to have the new sheriff convene a countywide Public Safety Summit with all law enforcement agencies across the county-Sheriff’s office, Constables, city police departments, Metro’s police department and the police department of all school districts, colleges, universities and community college systems, Texas Rangers, U.S. Marshall and FBI-to discuss and implement a comprehensive coordinated strategy to help reduce crime all across the county including in every city in Harris County.
Crime and criminals know no boundaries and all law enforcement agencies across our county are being funded by local taxpayers. Artificial boundaries should not stop Harris County law enforcement agencies (and certified Texas Peace Officers) from working together in a much more unified manner to better protect all Harris County residents no matter which city they live in or where in unincorporated Harris County they live.
We are not going to reduce crime in Houston or Harris County unless all of law enforcement works together. No one city or the county or school district or college can do it all alone.
Harris County law enforcement agencies must expand on the Homeland Security Fusion Center model to help increase crime prevention, arrests and clearance rates. This effort must also include shared access to security cameras and in the coming years a joint law enforcement command center similar to TranStar and consideration of a countywide or regional public safety district.
We have to try new ideas to fight crime in our community and better coordination and greater use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) powered technology must be a part of the conversation. Harris County, local law enforcement leadership and our state legislative and congressional delegations must all help lead and contribute to this effort.
Right now, what taxpayers want, need and deserve is results, not people we are paying telling us what is not their responsibility.
We deserve a new Sheriff who will build on what has been done right, but who will also be unafraid to offer leadership in new ways.
To the County Commissioners and Judge Hidalgo: please pick someone for Sheriff who will be able to do more than just operate the county jail.
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BY THE WAY: It may be hot outside right now, but remember the Texas electric grid failed us in the cold. It will get cold again, in Texas. Even worse, we have already been warned by Republican Governor Greg Abbott that the electricity grid may also fail us all during the heat of these summer months. Why isn’t Governor Abbott standing up for Texans to oppose increases in our electric bills? #WeDidn’tBreakTheGrid…The PUC and ERCOT did. Now ERCOT wants us to believe that Texas needs a 60 Point Plan to #FixTheGrid. That’s Crazy. The Texas Coalition of Black Democrats has a One Point Plan to Fix The Grid: FIRE Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton. #BeatAPP. That’s the plan to #FixTheGridandFixTexas.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
I am not going to Austin today, Saturday, June 10, 2021, to testify against the State Senate voter suppression bill because it won’t make a difference to Republicans. I also don’t believe that Democratic state lawmakers should have returned for the Special Session to allow Republicans to even have the opportunity to pass all the bad bills that Governor Abbott has recommended be passed.
For me, there is no acceptable middle ground on the bills that Republicans want to pass. My only goals are to kill those bills, elect a Democratic majority in the legislature and elect Democrats to statewide offices. To achieve these goals in 2022, Democrats in the legislature must once again leave. They must not let Governor Abbott hold them hostage because he vetoed legislative funding. Abbott did it and they need to let him pay the political price for doing it. Democratic donors and labor unions can (and must) help take care of the state employees that may have to go on unemployment during this fight for the future of our state.
Republicans are not only going to pass legislation to suppress our right to vote, they are also going to pass bills to whitewash the teaching of history in our state, make health care options for women harder to obtain, discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community and take Texas taxpayers’ money to build a wall at the border rather than use that money to fix the grid and improve health care and broadband access in rural communities.
It is not too late for Democrats, in the Legislature, to once again bust the quorum and leave.
The job of the Texas Legislature is to protect Texans and our tax dollars; It is not to discriminate against Black, Hispanic, low income, women, LGBTQ+ and younger Texans but that is exactly what Republicans are planning to do during this Special Session. Enough is enough. Democrats have to start fighting back as hard and as tough as Republicans are doing and the Texas Democratic Party needs to lead that fight.
It is not too late for Democrats, in the Legislature, to once again bust the quorum and leave. Nothing good is going to happen for the people they represent during this Special Session and they represent more than just the people who live in their district. After State House Democrats walked out to kill the voter suppression bill at the end of the Regular Session, they now represent all Texans and Americans fighting to protect and save our democracy.
For Texas Democratic state lawmakers, doing their job-at this moment in history-for those they represent in Texas (and all across our nation) demands that they, once again, bust the quorum and leave the Texas Capital.
Texas Democratic State lawmakers can save our nation; they can draw a line in the sand here, in Texas, against voter suppression, hate and discrimination.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
State Chairman, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
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