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Elections Have Consequences: A Tale in Two Tweets
From the local executive and judges to the presidency of the United States, all offices matter. People who have long been complacent, accepting of local officials, have had their eyes opened by public officials’ responses to COVID-19. Those offices and names way down the long ballot are suddenly obviously affecting peoples’ lives. Now, We the People are without excuse this election year and in the off-year elections ahead. Elections have consequences for you and me. Consider the local office of an elected judge.
Thank you to Shelley Luther and the team at Salon a la Mode for giving me my first haircut in 3 months & more importantly for standing up for liberty and common sense. Your courage helped pave the way for more #TX businesses to re-open & for more people to get back to work today. pic.twitter.com/R66rZsqxFN
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) May 8, 2020
Serious question. Come election season, how many politicians will claim they “took action” and “protected the public” when in reality, they just arrested moms and dads for trying to feed their families?
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 8, 2020
Local residents can affirm the behavior of Eric Moyé or reject it, making clear that judges are servants, not masters, of the public that elects them. Elections have consequences, and it was the fault of Texas Republicans that Moyé felt so secure in his position. They failed to put up any candidate against him in the last election cycle.
This year, just before the government started ordering people out of work, a serious woman stood up and entered the arena. Jessica Voyce Lewis practices bankruptcy law, which is coming around again as a very steady job with the massive shock to our economy. She started out representing poor tenants against slum lords. No one else had the courage or conviction to enter the race, so she won the primary uncontested for district judge, 14th Civil District. Jessica Voyce Lewis is a serious candidate running a serious race.
We need such good people everywhere, as we should all now be aware. Those blank lines on ballots, where the Republicans turned Republican’ts, invite abuse of office. After all, who is going to hold such office holders to account?
Published in Elections
I disagree. Judges more than any other elected officials should be upholders of the law, not the opinions of the voters.
I just donated and encourage others here to do so. Judge Moye´ needs to be taken off the bench. Everyone who is outraged by his behavior and arrogance should donate to Jessica Voyce‘s campaign.
Ah, appointed by Gov. Ann Richards! Why am I not surprised?
Yet, much of the nation has long held that it is wise to hold these office holders accountable at the ballot box, either in regular contested elections or in retention elections. If the public is the source of the federal and state constitutions and laws, then are judges upholding “law” as they wish it to be, or as the public, directly or indirectly, wrote it? Of course, there is also always risk in any office holder, including a judge, playing to a mob.
I think both Cruz and Crenshaw should be careful. They are elected officials; they have influence and loud voices. Far better would be to effect change in the policy than to undermine the existing policy, system, and due process. Conservatives are also rule of law. If the law sucks, then change it – don’t disregard it.
The Crenshaw tweet struck me as disingenuous and counterproductive. And I like Crenshaw a lot. Part of what I like about him is that he generally doesn’t shy away from truth, from valid points, and doesn’t pander or mischaracterize. Here, the policy is not that it is illegal to try to feed your family – that is a helluva characterization. I disagree with the policy too, but that is not the stated policy nor the intent. This is red meat (tinged red meat at that), not persuasion.
The “law” in question is exceptionally loose, expecting good behavior from elected and appointed officials, who have disappointed. It is true that moms and dads were arrested for trying to feed their families. Officials with an ounce of integrity would own that they were in fact destroying people’s ability to feed and house their families, and also putting people at quantifiable risk of death from suicide, overdose, cancer, heart disease, and stroke, for starters (according to real science, as opposed to the untested experimental treatment unethically prescribed by Dr. Fauci).
I agree with all of that except that they weren’t arrested for trying to feed their families. That may have been why they did it, understandably, but that wasn’t the charge. I’m just saying that its egregious enough without characterizing things that way. This isn’t the sheriff of Nottingham trying to be malicious. The law sucks, so change it. Let’s be careful about weakening the Rule of Law in the process.
That may be true. But governors are elected for four years. If they’re adamant in their executive orders, you could starve to death before you could elect someone who could change the law. That ain’t happening. People won’t put up with it.
As some parts of Texas were kicking inmates loose due to Covid-19 one Harvard educated judge decided that someone who operates a hair salon demanded that she grovel before the court by demanding an apology is, well the CofC will not allow me to express what I really think about this. Sometimes; “Golly Gee Whiz” is not enough. Poor little deplorable, she should have been a car thief, shoplifter, rapist, or tried to shoot someone. She’d be back out, and leaping along the streets again, without having to post bail, paying a fine, or spending a night in jail.
The malicious part was trying to force an apology. Without that, the system of laws would have seemed more reasonable and this whole episode would not have had such an impact. I don’t know if Ted Cruz had anything to say about that part.
Edit: I doubt the sheriff of Nottingham thought he was trying to do anything other than uphold the rule of law.
It’s the optics of throwing Luther in jail at the same time county judge Clay Jenkins was ordering some inmates released from jail that makes it look like Jenkins and Moye adhere to the local version of the old Sideshow Bob line from “The Simpsons”:
Moye could have simply ordered Luther’s license suspended for X number of days after salons and barber shops in Texas reopened (this past Friday) based on every day she was opened prior to Abbott’s order allowing them to resume business took effect. There still would have been protests over the law, but it wouldn’t have had the power of the contrast between jailing a business owner at the same time criminals are being freed, and would have put more of the focus on the question of not allowing the salons to reopen a week earlier, as part of the initial Phase I/small town Phase II reopening rules issued Abbott.
To be clear, I don’t defend releasing criminals, prosecuting the hairstylist, or making her grovel as part of the sentence. I’m against all of that.
Agreed. I’m not defending the decision.
So the whole limited government thing was a lie all along? Noted.
I must disagree completely. No method of selecting judges is free (or even can be free) of politics. Being able to turn out bad judges every election cycle is a good thing. Even so, here in Texas judges under fire for bad rulings retire and then are brought back as visiting judges by their peers. We have all come to accept that even Supreme Court justices are affected by politics. Pretending otherwise merely cedes ground to the vast left wing influence machine.
No it wasn’t. I don’t know how else to discuss unless you provide some detail about how you reached your conclusion.
Agreed, but elections aren’t the only way to get laws changed. US senators and representatives, especially home state famous ones, have a loud voice and influence. Legal challenges. Demonstrations and protests matter. Social media campaigns.
I doubt that the governor wants to keep businesses closed, and is unlikely to do so throught the next election or until people are starving. So why is he doing it? Address that in the pushback. Accusing him of wanting to arrest parents for feeding their kids is probably not true and could be counter productive.
Probably for fear that any spike in Covid deaths will be laid at his feet if he opens up the economy.
Abbott has been a pretty good governor. To see him altering his own lockdown orders in real time is a good development. To see some of the more obnoxious local officials discover that there is a price to pay is a wonder.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the reason certain restaurants and cafes have opted not to reopen their dining areas yet, even though they’ve had the right to do so in limited capacity for the past nine days in Texas. In their cases, though, it’s also likely linked to the threat of future legal action, if a store opens back up and then someone later sues, claiming they or a family member caught COVID inside their store. Better to just continue with the drive-thru or pick-up service until the case numbers really are down.