Message from the Chair

Recently every single Republican in the United States Senate voted against allowing that body to even consider the so-called DREAM Act. The Dream Act would have allowed children who were brought to this country by undocumented parents at least five years ago and before the age of 15 and who obtained a high school diploma or G.E.D. a chance to earn U. S. citizenship by completing at least two years of college or two years of military service and fulfilling other demands and requirements. It would be a good deal all the way around – for young men and women who were brought to this country by their parents, without any choice, but who have worked hard, succeeded well, done what has been asked of them, and want to serve their country – the United States – in its military; for the military, which wants the service these you people want to provide; and for the country, which gets good, educated, motivated, contributing citizens.

But Republicans – every single one of them – oppose that.

Once again Republicans showed their deep disdain for Latino families. So what else is new?

Do you realize that if it were up to Republicans, no one would even be allowed to speak Spanish in this country?

Think I’m kidding? Or exaggerating? Well, read the official Platform of the Texas Republican Party passed at their state convention just last July. This is a direct quote from that document: “We have room for but one language here and that is the English language.” Their platform goes on to demand, “One nation, one flag, one language.” And in case you didn’t get the point, the platform also calls for “adoption of American English as the official language of Texas.”

The second most important (for Republicans) item on their education agenda (according to their Platform) is elimination of bilingual education after first grade (for children attending pre-K, which, by the way, they oppose), after the second grade for kids who go to kindergarten, and after the third year of school for everybody.

No bilingual education and no speaking Spanish (or any other language other than “American English,” whatever that means – I guess English speakers from England or Canada wouldn’t be welcome here either, because they probably use “English English” or Canadian English”). How much more hostile to Latino families can you get?

And that after deciding that Cesar Chavez shouldn’t be in the schoolbooks our students study.

Republicans also want to kick children younger than 26 off their parents’ health insurance policies and allow insurance companies to refuse to cover kids who have preexisting conditions. They want to eliminate all programs that deal with early childhood development. The Republican platform also calls for repeal of hate crimes laws and unashamedly advocates use of racial profiling.

And I haven’t even mentioned the “I” word yet – immigration, where Republicans want to increase deportations dramatically, amend the Constitution to eliminate making anyone born in this country a citizen of the United States, allow hospitals to refuse to provide care to undocumented individuals, and do away with “Adjustment of Status” in immigration cases (among other things), while vehemently opposing “any” path to citizenship for folks who entered the country without documentation or overstayed their visas.

How can anyone doubt the hostility Republicans continually and unabashedly display for Latino families? Or vote for people who associate themselves with those beliefs and “values”?

It’s simply beyond me.

Gerry Birnberg
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
September 23, 2010

County Judge Ed Emmett has recently suggested that the county consider creating an Election Administrator’s position within the county and transferring voter registration duties from the county Tax Assessor-Collector/Voter Registrar and responsibility for conducting elections from the County Clerk to this appointed official. On the one hand, such a proposal might reduce to some degree the politicization of those offices. Democrats have been screaming for some time about the unlawful partisan activities of the Voter Registrar’s Office (even filing suit over it), and have complained bitterly that prior Republican Tax Assessor-Collector/Voter Registrars have made a politicized mess of that office. Read More »

The following are the remarks of Harris County Democratic Party chair Gerry Birnberg at senate district conventions throughout Harris County on Saturday, March 20.

As we meet here today – on the eve of passage by Democrats of landmark, transformational, life saving health care reform – something no one but a Democratic president has been able to accomplish, despite trying for more than 100 years – I am struck by an awesome observation:

What a difference one election makes!

When we last met two years ago, before the historic 2008 election, there were:

No Democrats holding countywide administrative office.
No Democrats serving in countywide judicial office.
No Democrats on the Court of Appeals here.
Oh, and by the way, no Democratic Presidential candidate who had carried Harris County since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

What a difference one election makes!

Read More »

Now that the filing deadline has passed and we have a record number of Democrats seeking elective office – many of them in contested primary races – various clubs, organizations, groups, and individuals (or groups of individuals), including precinct chairs, will be making recommendations or endorsements concerning who they think voters should select in the primary election, many after interviewing the candidates or obtaining questionnaire answers from them.

I just want to remind everyone that the Harris County Democratic Party does not endorse candidates in contested primaries. If you hear of an endorsement by some Democratic club or some Democratic elected official or group of elected officials or some Democratic organization or some precinct chair, please do not be confused: that endorsement does not constitute the endorsement of the Harris County Democratic Party or of the 2010 Harris County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign and it is not made on behalf of, or at the behest of, HCDP, nor does it indicate HCDP agreement or approval. The folks at the Harris County Project, which plays a substantial role in electing Democrats countywide in the fall, have asked me to inform Democrats that that group also does not endorse candidates in the primaries, and it has not participated in any process to favor or disfavor or endorse any candidates in the primary election. The role of the Harris County Project (and that of the Harris County Democratic Party) is to win elections in the fall, not to promote contested candidates in the spring. Read More »

The Harris County Democratic Party extends its heartiest congratulations to Houston Mayor-Elect Annise Parker on her victory in the recent runoff election. With her election, Houston continues to enjoy outstanding Democratic leadership and we are confident the People First agenda of the Democratic Party will find a true champion in Annise Parker.

We also extend our best wishes to Mayor-Elect Parker’s challengers Gene Locke and Peter Brown. There are no more decent, progressive, caring, visionary, and committed public servants than Gene Locke, Peter Brown, and Annise Parker, and Houston is extraordinarily fortunate to have had the three of them serving us in the past and vying to head our City’s government in the future. Read More »

Last month, Harris County Commissioners Court approved the resolution of the lawsuit the Texas and Harris County Democratic Parties, and various individuals, including former judicial candidate Goodwille Pierre had brought against the Harris County Voter Registrar.

The main areas in which the resolution will affect area voters are:

a) Unlike what the Voter Registrar’s Office initially proposed to do in early 2009, the deputy voter registration program cannot be changed from what it was in 2008 (like by reducing or moving the places where voter applications can be turned in by deputy registrars or requiring training at inconvenient locations) without prior approval of the United States Department of Justice. Read More »

I understand that the Democratic club known as the “Harris County Democrats” has endorsed candidates in the upcoming City of Houston elections. I want to remind everyone that the “Harris County Democrats” is NOT the Harris County Democratic Party and does not speak for the Harris County Democratic Party in any way. “Harris County Democrats” is a just a local club, like Houston Black American Democrats or Harris County Tejano Democrats or Oilpatch Democrats or Stonewall Democrats or Bay Area New Democrats, for example, or more than 30 other Democratic clubs in the Harris County area. They do not speak for, nor are they controlled or influenced by, the Harris County Democratic Party. Their endorsements are entirely their own and do NOT constitute or imply endorsement by the Harris County Democratic Party.

The Harris County Democratic Party does not endorse candidates in any race (except that we may, and sometimes do, endorse in a runoff election where there is only one Democrat in a race). The Harris County Democratic Party will not be endorsing, and has not endorsed, any candidates in the November 3, 2009 elections. Read More »

What qualifications should a nominee possess to be earn a United States Senator’s vote to confirm the President’s appointment of him or her as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States? Eight traits are generally thought of as legitimate bases for approving or rejecting a President’s choice for that position: experience, integrity, intellect, academic background, temperament, impartiality, open-mindedness, and (most controversially) judicial philosophy.

In announcing his opposition to the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the first Hispanic and only third woman ever to serve on the nation’s highest court, Senator John Cornyn acknowledged that she passes all of those tests except, in his view, one: her judicial philosophy is “mainstream.” That’s disqualifying, according to Cornyn, because, apparently only fanatical ideologues are suitable to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, as far as Cornyn is concerned. Read More »

At a speech to the University of California at Berkley School of Law in 2001, Judge Sonia Sotomayor described how she had been raised an impoverished immigrant in a South Bronx housing project and how she was taught to “love America and value its lesson that great things could be achieved if one works hard for it.” She then pondered what influence that upbringing might have on her presence on the federal bench.

Acknowledging that “judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity, based on the reason of law,” she nevertheless wondered whether that total impartiality can ever be fully achieved, since “we are by our experiences making different choices than others.” So, the reality is that “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.” Indeed, she continued, those differences may, in some cases, yield more just results. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Judge Sotomayor gave a couple of examples where that might have been true: “Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cordozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society.” Perhaps a wise Latina with the richness of her experience would have reached a better result. Read More »

Here are a few questions which occurred to me after Sarah Palin announced she would be resigning as governor of Alaska later this month – 18 months before the end of her term:

• What does Governor Palins’s rationale for stepping down say about the irrationality of term limits?

Having decided not to seek re-election, Governor Palin decided to abandon the governorship because having a lame duck in office would be bad for the state of Alaska. The effectiveness of an elected official is irreparably undermined, in Governor Palin’s opinion, by the fact that that person will no longer be around after his or her term ends.

That situation, of course, is the one which confronts every elected official who, by virtue of term limits, is necessarily a “lame duck” once elected to his or her final authorized term. On Governor Palin’s view, such individuals cannot effectively serve the electorate which just put them in office, so they should step down.

That’s a pretty strong condemnation of term limits and, by implication, of the proponents of the notion that the law should make lame ducks of all elected officials in pretty short order. Read More »