Last March, thousands of women and other reproductive-rights supporters descended on the Texas Capitol in an attempt to block the Legislature’s passage of draconian anti-abortion laws. Despite intense opposition and a dramatic filibuster by state Senator Wendy Davis, which launched her unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 2 in a special […]

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  The recent 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation from office gives us a useful perspective on the calls by right-wingers for the impeachment of President Barack Obama. The grounds they claim are vague, if not incoherent. In July, for example, Sarah Palin, former Republican vice presidential candidate and Tea Party favorite, charged him […]

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  At 10 a.m. on July 16, Texas Republican Pete Sessions called the House Rules Committee to order, and for two hours, members of the committee heard three accomplished constitutional scholars debate the principles of representative government established by the framers of the Constitution in 1776 and reaffirmed by the men who gave their last […]

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  I was in Paris when news broke of mass demonstrations following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Images filled the media of police dressed in helmets and camouflage, wielding heavy artillery, riding in tanks, tear gas and smoke bombs exploding among crowds, huge dogs snapping and snarling and straining their leads. I […]

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Because of rulings from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court, the Republican governor and Legislature of Texas have succeeded in excluding as many as 844,000 eligible voters from this November’s national, state and local elections. Many of those voters are African-American or Hispanic. Many would have voted for Democratic […]

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