AP: Texas

03/19/2007

Associated Press

A sampling of editorial opinion around Texas:

March 19

The Dallas Morning News on child rapists:

Well, in defense of child rapists ...

There's really no good way to complete that thought. And even if someone made one up, you wouldn't read it here. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has it right when he calls adults who would sexually abuse children "monsters."

"Not in Texas," he says.

Yet that doesn't mean Mr. Dewhurst and the Legislature should rewrite Texas law to punish these monstrous acts with the death penalty, a punishment reserved for the most heinous crimes that result in a victim's death.

The "give 'em the needle" provision embedded in Jessica's Law inspired by a convicted sex offender's horrendous abduction and murder of a 9-year-old Florida girl, Jessica Lunsford might be satisfying to say, but it's constitutionally unsupportable. You don't have to tolerate child rape to see that.

For one thing, the death provision requires skipping past a whole class of crime, the vast majority of murders in Texas that are punished by something less than death.

Wherever you stand on the death penalty, we hope you would agree that it should be applied fairly and consistently and reserved for the absolute worst crimes. Child killers. Police officer killers. Multiple killers. Armed robbery killers.

For another, what leads you to believe a death penalty for a child sex abuser who does not kill will survive U.S. Supreme Court review?

If anything, the high court has been narrowing the window on capital punishment. In 2002, it ruled against the death penalty for the mentally retarded. Three years later, it voted down death for those who killed as minors.

And in the 1977 Coker v. Georgia case, the Supreme Court ruled that death was a disproportionate punishment i.e., unconstitutional for the rape of a 16-year-old.

That's why Texas should not join the five states that allow death penalties for child rape, although HB 8 has cleared the House and companion SB 68 is headed to the Senate floor.

Louisiana is the only state that has sentenced a child rapist to death no state has carried out the penalty and that case probably will be the one that reaches the Supreme Court.

And when it does, we hope the Legislature hasn't left a ticking time bomb in the Texas Penal Code that will go off when the high court rules such punishment however well intentioned unconstitutional.

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March 19

Fort Worth Star-Telegram on the Texas Legislature and gambling:

Some people who closely watch the Texas Legislature will tell you that lawmakers will never approve a bill to expand gambling in this state in a year like this one when theyre sitting on a $14.3 billion budget surplus.

Lets turn that logic on its head. The best time to talk about this is when the state doesnt absolutely have to have the revenue that casinos and other gambling measures could bring. People dont always make good decisions when they are desperate.

Two state senators, Rodney Ellis of Houston and John Carona of Dallas, have introduced legislation calling for a constitutional amendment allowing 12 destination resort casinos in the state, along with three additional casinos on Indian reservations and video slot machines at horse and dog racetracks.

This is the best thought-out proposal for expanded gambling that the Legislature has seen and it has seen many in recent sessions.

Its time to talk about this plan. Its time to approve it (except one part that will be addressed in a moment).

This Editorial Board has said in the past that it would rather see a straightforward proposal for casino gambling than the halfway measures that only called for "video lottery terminals" a PR mans glossy term for slot machines. This proposal has the casino proponents and the horse and dog track folks working together for what they both want.

Of course, the main argument for expanded gambling in Texas has not changed. Its that too many Texans are taking their money to neighboring states where casinos and other gambling opportunities are readily available. If any state is to benefit from that spending, it should be Texas.

Proponents say that the casinos would have an economic impact of about $50 billion a year and would create about 118,000 direct jobs. Additional state and local tax revenue could be as much as $4.6 billion. As a special sweetener, the casino proponents want the state to set aside $1 billion a year from that additional tax revenue to provide college scholarships for Texas students.

Horse track owners long have said that they need the take from slot machines so they can increase purses and reverse the tide of breeders taking their horses to greener pastures in other states.

One flaw in this proposed legislation has to do with the process for putting casinos in place. Seven of the 12 would be in the states largest urban areas, including at least one in Tarrant County, each with minimum land and development costs of $400 million. Two would be on islands on the Gulf coast and three would be in places to be determined later.

The legislation calls for local-option elections in any county where someone applies for a state casino license, so the residents of Tarrant County would be able to vote on whether they really want one here. But there would be a statewide constitutional amendment election to allow casinos in the first place, and the Ellis-Carona legislation says that any county where more than half of the voters approve the constitutional amendment would be considered to have approved a local casino.

Wait a minute.

That killing-two-birds-with-one-election approach is too hasty. Lets have a vote on the constitutional amendment, and then lets have a casino operator come sell us on a particular approach for Tarrant County.

Voters should have the right to approve the first but reject the second if they wish.

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March 18

Houston Chronicle on U.S. fiscal reform:

The sky isn't falling yet.

But David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, is sounding his fiscal alarm outside the Beltway in a three-year commitment to educate the public about the monumental, unchecked federal deficit.

Don't blame the nearly $500 billion spent on the war in Iraq or the $125 billion to rebuild after Katrina, Walker says. These expenses don't help, but the culprits he names are the large federal entitlement programs Social Security and Medicare in combination with demographic forces and political irresponsibility. It also doesn't help that there are no meaningful budget controls in place.

And don't be lulled by the recent reduction in the deficit over last year at this time, as tax collections surpass growth in expenditures. Walker claims even an optimistic projection of economic growth over the long term won't fix the underlying budget issues.

Walker has undertaken the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour that recently landed him on CBS' 60 Minutes hoping his unprecedented campaign will provoke citizens to demand action from their government.

We are in debt to the tune of $9 trillion. In fiscal year 2006, revenues increased by $255 billion, but costs exceeded revenues by $450 billion and cash outlays exceeded cash receipts by $248 billion. The numbers either scare your pants off or cause your eyes to glaze over. Walker thinks it's primarily the latter.

Walker began his tour, supported by partnerships with organizations as diverse as the Heritage Foundation and AARP, in 2005 because he felt elected representatives of all stripes were ignoring the issue. He will continue speaking on college campuses and at city forums through the 2008 presidential elections. He has been heartened by recent pledges from the Bush administration to reduce the deficit by 2012 and by the U.S. House voting to bring back the so-called "pay as you go rules."

What would really make the nation's chief accountant a happy man is for Congress to address the much-needed revamping of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare important stabilizing programs that are unsustainable in their current form. He believes lawmakers can maintain the integrity of the programs while realistically addressing the demographic challenge of the aging baby boomers.

The worst-case scenario for Walker would be failing to address these issues and defaulting on the debt, as did Argentina.

Tough choices need to be made, he says, and the sooner the better. With entitlement reform, restraining some spending and raising revenues, the bleeding can be staunched. Walker is right that accomplishing these goals will take sacrifice on the part of all. His campaign interjects a needed cautionary note in a fiscal landscape that cannot fail to make those paying attention uneasy. He raises thoughtful questions that demand thoughtful answers from officials and candidates in the months to come.

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March 19

Austin American-Statesman on Sunshine Week:

American-Statesman intern Marcy Miranda exercised her right as a citizen by asking for public information from officials in Hays, Williamson and Travis counties. Her request netted her very little information and a visit from the FBI.

As part of Sunshine Week a national effort sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors Miranda was detailed to ask county officials in the American-Statesman circulation area for a look at their Comprehensive Emergency Response Plan. Federal law requires the plans be made available to anyone who asks.

Of the four counties Miranda visited, only Williamson did what the law requires and turned over the information. That means 75 percent of the information that should have been turned over was withheld. Not only that, but Miranda was investigated by the FBI just for asking for information that Congress deems public.

The implications are glaring. The law is as plain as the defiance of it. On top of that, people who asked to see it earn themselves a visit from federal agents.

Security issues in an open society are always complicated. There was nothing complicated here because the information Miranda sought was public.

The implications are frightening. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks we talked a lot about how we could tell if the terrorists won. If access to basic information is cut off, they have won.

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March 18

San Antonio Express-News on the recent death of a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin:

The Russian people, like all people, confront a variety of factors that can cut short their life expectancy: smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, excessive drinking.

But few things seem to have such a deleterious effect on their health as criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In October, journalist Anna Politkovskaya was fatally shot in her Moscow apartment building. Politkovskaya had written scathing reports about the war in Chechnya and human rights abuses by the Russian military and its Chechen partners. Her murder remains unsolved.

Then in November, Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Ministry of State Security the successor to the KGB mysteriously died in London from radiation poisoning. Litvinenko was investigating Politkovskaya's death when he was stricken. His murder remains unsolved.

Now Ivan Safronov, a retired colonel and military affairs correspondent for a Russian newspaper who had run afoul of the Putin government, has met an untimely end. According to authorities, Safronov fell from a fifth-floor window in the stairwell of his Moscow apartment building. He lived on the third floor.

The International News Safety Institute ranks Russia as the second-most deadly nation for journalists during the past 10 years, after Iraq. According to the International Federation of Journalists, close to 40 killings of journalists have taken place since Putin came to power seven years ago. None of them, says IFJ, has been satisfactorily resolved.

Elections for Putin's successor will take place in a year. Given the premature parting of his critics, will anyone be around or be audacious enough to write a negative assessment of his tenure?