What next on Texas Mormon compound case?

By now, most the country has heard about last week’s Texas raid on a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, including the removal of more than 400 children.

Unless the state of Texas and Child Protective Services in particular get their acts together quickly, I predict the state is going to be in a bunch of trouble, including some lawsuits against it.

This USA Today column summarizes some points for national readers. After that, I’ll add local points cleaned from Texas newspapers and my own knowledge, and offer up why I think the way I do.

• Did Texas have any option short of taking the children from their families for weeks? This is the largest child custody case in Texas and U.S. history, and the seizure of so many children is both extreme and extraordinary. Authorities said they raided the compound — belonging to an isolationist group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), which is known to practice polygamy — after a call to a domestic abuse hotline from a 16-year-old seeking help. The caller wasn’t found, but child welfare officials said they saw several teenage girls who were pregnant or with young children. That prompted them to remove all the children.

• Did the state infringe on the group's right to practice its religion? FLDS members have invited fear and suspicion by cutting themselves off from society. It is likely that the sect built its isolated West Texas compound in 2004 to avoid outside interference. In recent days, FLDS mothers have appeared on TV wearing prairie dresses and old-fashioned hairdos. Different, yes, but the Constitution protects religious freedom, as long as it's practiced legally.

• Did anyone inside the compound violate statutory rape, child molestation or other laws? Whatever the group’s beliefs, the age of consent in Texas is 17, and the age of marriage with parental consent is 16. On TV, at least one FLDS man said he did not know Texas law prohibited sex with adolescent girls. If the law has been violated, the girls should be protected and offenders prosecuted.

• What is in the best interest of each child? What's right for one child might not be right for all 437. Appropriately, a judge has ordered that the case of each child be heard by June 5. DNA tests are being conducted to sort out tangled families. In the meantime, the emotional toll on the parents is evident. How the children are faring can only be guessed. They are being transferred to temporary foster care after being held in a coliseum in the town of San Angelo.

Now, some Texas-level observations, some of which will provide further explanation to USA Today points.

First, we can go beyond “the caller wasn’t found.” Though nobody will say anything on the record by name, it’s pretty clear this was a prank call. Without excusing anything that may have happened at the Eldorado compound, parents know that rebellious teenagers, in some cases, will make prank calls against their parents to authorities.

The state’s failure to adequately investigate that possibility before the raid could be a matter of legal liability in any lawsuits the FLDS file.

And, things like a state district judge treating the children like cattle and not having individual hearings on their custody status will only add to that.

Second, and unsurprisingly, Gov. Helmethair, aka Rick Perry, is AWOL on this issue. Why? For the same reason that folks like the Rutherford Institute are jumping in with both feet — Rick doesn’t want to alienate the Religious Right, especially now that he has announced he will run for re-election in 2010.

Third, it’s no crime to be a pregnant teen, or our jails would be even more bursting than they are now.

Fourth, as other FLDS-type cases have shown, unless this is tried very carefully (assuming criminal charges result), you run the risk of generating a Stockholm Syndrome situation where teen brides side with their non-caffeinated sugar daddies. My confidence Texas will try this, and a judge will hear it, with that level of skill? Right now, about 10 percent.

That’s especially true on statuatory rape charges. After this fiasco, good luck to the state of Texas on proving those charges.

There's more: "What next on Texas Mormon compound case?" >>

Will Texas voters elect this clown AGAIN?

Despite only getting 40 percent of the vote (with the courtesy of rounding up) in 2006, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Friday he is running for re-election in 2010.

Well, I expect he will have one, and just one, Republican primary opponent, in what should be a bruising dust-up campaign two years from now.

Yes, you heard me right. One.

And only one.

Who that “one” is, and how that race might turn out, coming right up with some more analysis.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst will indeed challenge Perry, and I believe win. And, not as a Republican, which I most certainly am not, nor as a Democrat, which I am not registered as, either, I would pay primo money to watch that fight. As Texans know, they have already had a tussle or two in the last session of the Lege. As for why I think he’ll win, read below, where I list the reasons why he would be a tougher opponent for Democrats than Perry.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson will again play Hamlet, then play chicken liver, just as in 2006, and opt not to run, then make up some bullshit excuse for why.

Trust me on this one, she doesn’t have it in her. She knows she won’t come close with collecting Religious Right votes and if Dewhurst announces before her, he’ll line up more of the financial conservative vote in suburban Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

So, scratch Kay. If McCain loses in 2008, she might accept a Republican VP slot in 2012. If not, she’ll likely retire from the Senate.

As for Democrats, they probably would like to run against Perry, and certainly would do better against him than Dewhurst. Dewhurst is less hard-line conservative, especially on Religious Right issues, than Perry. He also is simply smoother as a person. Plus, he has a metro power base in Houston. As for Gov. Helmethair vs. Dewhurst on other issues, the Trans-Texas Corridor is a biggie. Now, secretly, Dewhurst may like some of its provisions. But, so far, he’s not come off as sounding any way in favor of it.

That said, the 2006 election showed Democrats that, with state demographics, they have a better chance of beating any Republican who goes too far right. And, without Grandma Strayhorn around this time, Dem deep pockets will line up early behind a candidate.

But whom? Chris Bell might deserve another shot, but I don’t know if he’ll take it.

I’m going to throw out State Sen. Royce West. He’s denied the itch before, but by 2010 he will have spent enough time in the Texas Senate to want to move on. That’s unless he reaches some non-attack quid pro quo with Dewhurst and runs for lieutenant governor instead. He’s got enough connections through his law practice, I believe is acceptable to more progressive Democrats, has a solid legislative record, and through the recognition of being Senate President Pro Tem, has party leaders he can line up.

We’ll see how this turns out, starting about 18 months from now.

There's more: "Will Texas voters elect this clown AGAIN?" >>

Gov. Helmethair is also Gov. Smogbreath

Texas Gov. Rick Perry just hasn’t met a polluter or a pollutant he doesn’t like, as his handpicked Texas Commission on Environmental Quality tells the federal Environmental Protection Agency not to make the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex clean up its air, specifically its ozone.

Among Gov. Smogbreath’s more ludicrous arguments is that ozone doesn’t put people in the hospital.

No?

Rick, you ever seen a severe asthma attack?

Rick, you wanna admit that a person in D/FW admitted (likely to Parkland) with a severe asthma attack is probably one of hundreds of thousands of children in this state without any, or adequate, medical insurance, another one of those measurement sticks where Texas ranks near the bottom of the nation?

Here’s the actual TCEQ bullshit:

Starting with Ms. White's letter of April 19, the TCEQ has asserted that Texas’ pattern of asthma hospitalizations – peaking in winter, when ozone levels are low – shows that ozone doesn't send asthmatics to emergency rooms. That would contradict many studies that link ozone to hospital visits, and thus undermine the EPA proposal.

The asthma hospitalization pattern, TCEQ officials said, seems to be a uniquely Texan phenomenon, probably due to the state's combination of weather and emissions sources. Ms. White wrote to the EPA that the pattern was “an example of how Texas is different from the rest of the U.S.” and cited it as “indicating that ozone is not a significant contributor to asthma hospitalizations.”

The TCEQ’s Mr. Shanbacher repeated the argument at an EPA hearing in Houston on Sept. 5. TCEQ executive director Glenn Shankle’s formal comments on the EPA plan, dated Oct. 9, also cited it.

This would be laughable if not despicable. Anyway, here’s its detailed refutation:

Actually, the seasonal pattern has been found everywhere it's been studied – “in countries as environmentally, economically, culturally and socially different as Trinidad, Norway, Hong Kong, the United States, and England,” researchers wrote in a 2001 study published in BMC Health Services Research, a peer-reviewed online journal.

The winter-peak pattern is common knowledge among asthma researchers, said Dr. Eric Crighton, the study’s chief author. His paper cited more than a dozen other studies published since 1984 that found the same seasonal trend.

“Rural, urban – if you go to someplace like northern Ontario, where ozone is certainly not a problem, you'll find this same pattern,” said Dr. Crighton, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Ottawa. “You go to deserts, to unindustrialized [places] – you name it.”

The immediate cause of most winter asthma hospitalizations, he said, is almost certainly viruses, which spread among children when school starts and are then passed on to their families and others. Asthma hospitalizations match school dates so well, Dr. Crighton said, that it's possible to tell when semesters start by looking at admissions.

The winter asthma peak doesn't exonerate ozone at all, he said, because lung damage from long-term exposure to ozone, even in amounts once thought safe, puts asthmatics more at risk from other threats such as viruses.

Let’s throw a little further refutation from the EPA into the mix:

Dr. Henderson, the head of the EPA's ozone review panel, concurred. The panel members knew about the winter-peak asthma pattern when they called for a dramatically tighter ozone standard, she said.

“They took into consideration seasonal differences and co-pollutants and other confounders of the data,” Dr. Henderson said. “So the panel took those things into account in doing the analysis.”

Meanwhile, Texas Big Biz is all too willing to ride Gov. Smogbreath’s coattails, even as far as verbatim quotes of TCEQ statements in its own comments to the EPA:

Language identical to that in Mr. Schanbacher's September testimony later appeared in letters to the EPA from the Texas Association of Business on Oct. 8 and from the Association of Electric Companies of Texas on Oct. 9.

That includes this whopper:

Mr. Schanbacher said in an interview that he was not aware of a winter peak in asthma hospitalizations being found anywhere else. “I think other states don't keep as good hospital records as Texas,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Grover Norquist/Newt Gingritch talking points are also out in force. Perry and Texas Big Biz want the EPA to consider cost in setting new ozone standards, which is specifically not allowable under the Clean Air Act.

If nothing else, Perry, the state agencies and the Big Biz that dance to his tune have shown they’re as blatant and bald-faced in their lying as Gov. Smogbreath’s predecessor.

Who was that? Some guy who claimed he learned bipartisanship in Austin.

His name almost escapes me, but I can never forget an initial … W.

Rick, can I take you to one of TXI’s cement-production smokestacks in Midlothian, tie you to the top in January, and see how long it will take for you and TCEQ to quit talking about this winter asthma anomaly bullshit?

There's more: "Gov. Helmethair is also Gov. Smogbreath" >>