Friday, May 21, 2021

Evangelist smites Baylor

Given the disturbing transformation of white evangelicalism in America in recent years, no one should be surprised at Dallas megachurch pastor and Trump ally Robert Jeffress' angry condemnation of Baylor University. During a right-wing radio rant this week, the Baylor alumnus ridiculed a May 14 declaration by Baylor's board of regents laying down certain guiding principles for campus treatment of LGBTQ students, up to and possibly including allowing such students to form a formal student group.

Jeffress’ judgment, issued from on high May 18: “I believe there are some great Christians who teach and attend at Baylor, but what they teach and the underlying philosophy is anti-Christian. And I don’t think any true Christian parent who wanted their kids to have a Christian education would allow their child anywhere near Baylor University.” The ever-provocative pastor of 13,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas and fire-breathing Fox News commentator went on to lament his congregation’s having long sent students to Baylor only to “have their faith completely torn apart by infidels in the religion department.”

Thus Pastor Jeffress in his almighty tirade serves up good reason for preferring democracy to theocracy in America. Jeffress’ view of the Christian faith hinges on a nightmarish perversion of Old Testament condemnation, marginalization and vengeance, arguably in lockstep with some Americans’ politics of late but at odds with Jesus’ teachings of charity, hope, love and, yes, tolerance. As a journalist who has rigorously chronicled and questioned Baylor’s failings in crises through the years, I’m perhaps better positioned then to celebrate Baylor when it demonstrates Christian humility, compassion and outreach.

Sure, some people have mixed feelings about the LGBTQ question, but to their credit Baylor regents this month signaled a move forward and above the rancor. In their declaration, they stated a desire “to establish trust with our LGBTQ students so that, among other things, they might seek out the resources provided by Baylor.” They acknowledge Baylor’s “responsibility to serve the needs of all students entrusted to us across all areas of their development – academics, personal and spiritual.” That’s not exactly a hearty embrace of what Jeffress calls “ungodly activity” but it conveys inclusiveness, stewardship and caring.

Jeffress ridicules Baylor’s claim to be “unapologetically Christian but the fact is all they do is apologize for being Christian.” This may well refer to BU leadership’s effort to address the stench of racism one might expect of Texas’ oldest continuously operating university. To help students, faculty and the public better grasp the harm of not only slavery but the Jim Crow era, Baylor through the past year has tapped historians far and near to set important historical context; held discussion groups with students; and issued a report seeking to correct symbolic matters regarding campus statues and memorials.

And a day after Jeffress slammed Baylor leadership, university officials joined Waco Mayor Dillon Meek in honoring “faculty, staff and alumni who have demonstrated efforts to foster greater appreciation and advancement of diversity, inclusiveness and equity for communities of color at Baylor and in Waco.” They include Elizabeth Palacios, dean for student development, Division of Student Life; Lakia Scott, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, School of Education; and Dominque Hill, director of wellness, Division of Student Life.

Given the strong influence Rev. Jeffress acknowledges First Baptist of Dallas legend and Baylor critic W.A. Criswell has had on his life (Criswell died in 2002), perhaps this week’s blistering criticism isn’t so surprising. During the interview with conservative commentator Todd Starnes (who said some 30 pastors in the Waco area wrote Baylor to protest its nuanced approach to the LGBTQ dilemma), Jeffress, 65, railed about his long-ago days as a Baylor student. Professors back then, he charged, would “stand up and talk about all the errors in the Bible, the contradictions in the Bible, how the Bible was just a collection of men’s thoughts about God.”

Yet if the supposedly divine and infallible word of the Bible cannot withstand college-level scholarship about its origins, questions regarding those who wrote biblical text (inspired or not) and what latter-day interpretations hold for those of faith, then these texts will and should not endure the ages any more than the U.S. Constitution which is analyzed, questioned, debated and dissected daily, and in great detail, by academic scholars, working attorneys and federal jurists. Perhaps attorney and former federal judge Ken Starr — whose tenure as a popular and enlightened Baylor president ended in 2016 amid a #MeToo scandal of sexual assault and administrative indifference overwhelming the BU campus — can offer a proper defense of the university he once championed when he appears on Jeffress’ Sunday morning church program to plug his new book, “Religious Liberty in Crisis.”

Jeffress certainly isn't alone in his scathing condemnation of Baylor. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler — whom religion journalist Mark Wingfield in his insightful Baptist News Global analysis describes as "defender of the official faith of the Southern Baptist Convention” — tweeted of the Waco-based Christian university of more than 16,000 students and a regent board that includes some chosen by Baylor alumni: "This is a picture of institutional capitulation disguised as care. Accepting a chartered student organization identified as LGBTQ is incompatible with holding to biblical convictions. The great surrender continues." Tweeting right back at Mohler was Dwight McKissic, senior pastor of Arlington-based Cornerstone Baptist Church, who raised questions of accuracy and consistency in Mohler's stance: "Baylor affirmed a biblical view of sexuality without compromise in [its May 14] statement. SBTS accommodated you as president affirming the Lost Cause Theory & permitted [Baptist lay leader and retired state appellate judge] Paul Pressler to declare “the wrong side won the civil war,” without any public reprimand. Jesus showed compassion." [Rev. McKissic is black; Pressler and Mohler, predictably, are white. The Lost Cause narrative, of course, offers a wildly misleading and benign portrait of the antebellum South, secession, slavery and surrender in the Civil War.] Yet Rev. Jeffress' stance is attracting most attention, no doubt given his relative tolerance and acceptance of high-profile sinners in political realms who gain his personal favor.

Many following Starnes and Jeffress this week have expressed doubt at what they heard and read. One tweeted: “Even if there were ‘infidels’ in the Baylor faculty, if your adult children cannot engage with non-Christians without having their faith shattered... maybe that's not saying much for how stable the faith you taught them is.” Another, aware of Jeffress’ earthbound idol, tweeted to Starnes: “Deepest apologies to you and @robertjeffress/@firstdallas that my grad school alma mater doesn’t expressly set out to clone his particular ilk of Trumpist idolators of power.” Another asked Jeffress directly by tweet: "Why do 'Christian' ministers like you work so hard to find people to hate?"

A bracing truth: All religions at various times haves perpetuated evil in the world. It’s to Baylor’s credit that “infidels” in the religion department explore the spiritual, ethical and moral challenges of being a Christian in times when false prophets among us are many. With growing emphasis on everything from scientific research to scrutiny of religious texts to studies of the human condition, Baylor is best when encouraging critical thinking in defiance of tribalism, echo chambers and demagoguery. To that end, Rev. Jeffress is one more distracting voice in the din of an increasingly corrupted society, complete with bloviating religious charlatans and God-fearing snake charmers that complement Thomas Jefferson's long-dreaded "soothsayers and necromancers” imperiling American democracy. Altogether they highlight the steep challenges confronting us in the here and now.

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Legislative shell game adds to Texas disappearing democracy scheme

Every so often, the jaded political observer must pause in his labors to marvel at some display of self-serving, politically motivated deceit in the Texas Legislature, a spectacle worthy of inclusion in the Machiavellian bag of tricks that scheming and unscrupulous politicians keep close by. And so I paused last week to marvel at a political shell game so illusionary it will confound most voters unaccustomed to critical thinking and thus pass by ignored. Then again, what transpired in the Texas House Elections Committee last Thursday is really no Rubik’s cube at all  just plain outrageous and audacious.

Thursday morning, boyish-looking Rep. Briscoe Cain, 36, a Deer Park Republican, apparently tried to hoodwink his own committee and the public. As chairman, he tried to scuttle Senate Bill 7 – an election-reform bill painstakingly crafted by Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes and co-authored by our own Sen. Brian Birdwell – and nonchalantly replace it with a “committee substitute” that turned out to be Cain’s own rival election-reform bill, House Bill 6. Democratic representatives cried “bullshit” – literally – and Republican Rep. Travis Clardy declined to vote at all on this trickery.

That might well have been the end of Cain’s Machiavellian effort – his motion failed because Clardy quite correctly abstained – except that when the committee reconvened come evening, Clardy had either been admonished by House higher-ups or experienced a political epiphany – and this time Senate Bill 7 disappeared in the lower chamber and in its place was Cain’s HB 6 which, to quote committee vice chairwoman Jessica González, is “substantially different” from the Senate bill.

Interestingly, when Cain first explained to fellow committee members he was offering a “committee substitute” to SB 7, he didn’t exactly volunteer it was his very own House bill masquerading as the committee substitute. What’s more, Cain – and whoever put him up to this skullduggery – escaped the rigors of another grueling public hearing on the logic that because the committee substitute to SB 7 was HB 6, and because HB 6 had already undergone a 17-hour-long public hearing on April Fool’s Day, further public input was unnecessary.

Thus, the public would be unable to cry “bullshit” on Cain’s switcheroo with high-priority Senate and House legislation in a public hearing. The spectacle in the Texas House of Representatives, unfolding with the apparent blessing of new Speaker Dade Phelan, means rival election bills House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7 are no longer rivals at all but one and the same, at least in the lower chamber, even though SB 7 continues forward as the work of Hughes and his Senate colleagues.

For those who compare the art of legislation with sausage-making, welcome to the slaughterhouse.

Quite a guy

Cain is certainly emerging as the poster boy for the Trump-infused Republican Party. A month ago he created an unnecessary stink by refusing to allow questions about his election bill from Rep. Nicole Collier, chairwoman of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus – her presence hardly surprising, given credible claims Cain’s bill is hostile to minorities, restricting voting measures statistically favored by them. More? How about a seemingly bungled procedural move by Cain that ended a hearing on this same election bill, sidelining hundreds of Texans who traveled to the Capitol to testify on HB 6, some in his favor? This also ironically slowed the legislative progress of Cain’s bill in a time-limited Legislature.

And if all that’s not enough to question Speaker Phelan’s judgment in tapping Briscoe Cain as House Elections Committee chairman, consider Cain’s tweeted threat to Beto O’Rourke upon the latter’s suggestion of restricting so-called “assault weapons” after the 2019 mass targeted shooting of Hispanics in El Paso: “My AR is ready for you.” Pretty mature, huh? Cain clearly sought to score points with the NRA crowd, notwithstanding 23 dead in Texas. More? Well, Cain offered his legal skills to the Trump bandwagon suing to overturn citizens’ votes in Pennsylvania after the contested 2020 presidential election – a misguided effort that won a slapdown from no less than a Trump-appointed federal appeals judge outraged at what he saw in the lawsuit.

Political observers more seasoned than I suggest Cain’s move last week was taken as an unorthodox means to speed up the legislative process on bills given high priority by Gov. Greg Abbott, simplifying matters for House members who, till Cain’s actions, faced not one but two main options for election reform in two different omnibus bills. Cain’s move and the committee’s belated approval (by a 5-4 vote) would ultimately leave sorting out of differences in the bills to Senate-House conference committee members whose final patchwork bill would presumably include parts of SB 7 (as Hughes and the Senate crafted it) and HB 6 (or SB 7 in House guise). Key Senate compromises could also die there, especially in the mad rush that typically ensues in the final weeks of the legislative session. The result could be a crazy-quilt, even more oppressive bill for legislators to then vote up or down on. There’s evidence such a scheme is indeed underway: Neither Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (who a month ago voiced great pride in Senate debate producing SB 7) nor Sen. Bryan Hughes (who voiced great pride in public testimony offered on SB 7) has voiced any public protest over the latest House machinations. Are they complicit in some conspiracy to stifle public protest regarding all this? To add insult to injury, Cain added to the deception on his Facebook page a day after his effort to pull a fast one on at least some committee members, not to mention the public: “Great to see House Bill 6 in the Calendars Committee! Senate Bill 7 is close behind after being voted out of committee last night.”

Who's being played?

Take it from me after hours of hearing testimony and debate on Senate Bill 7 and House Bill 6: Sen. Hughes not only graciously entertained public testimony for and against his bill as chairman of the Senate Committee on State Affairs but withstood tough questioning from fellow senators during floor debate. He managed SB 7 throughout with patience, professionalism and civility – and even included Democratic suggestions for improving the bill. For instance, a toxic provision requiring that disabled citizens furnish documentation proving they’re truly disabled – a de facto poll tax – was jettisoned from SB 7 before Senate passage. Smart restrictions, too, were placed on poll-watcher videos being downloaded anywhere but the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. (That would mean poll-watcher video of your decrepit Aunt Bertha hobbling into a polling place with her cane and fumbling forever for her voter registration couldn’t end up on YouTube for all eternity). In contrast to Hughes, who seems familiar with every iota of his legislation, Cain has shown stunning confusion not only about what’s in his own election bill but in state election law.

Make no mistake about SB 7 or HB 6. For any red-blooded, fully cognizant patriot who appreciates democracy in America, these bills are an affront to everything in our founding documents as well as the 14th and 15th Amendments and the hard-won Voting Rights Act of 1965, the latter the work of civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. These bills demonstrate continuing fealty to a pouting, self-indulgent former president and his spurious and destructive claims of a stolen election. They’re the flip side of the insurrection that on Jan. 6 overwhelmed the U.S. Capitol, halted Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties of certifying Electoral College results and left several dead and many injured in its violent wake.

One question yet unanswered: Is the public now witnessing the spectacle of Texas Republicans sandbagging Texas Republicans in the State Capitol? Or is the public itself being played in some bewildering Machiavellian drama so operatic as to leave Trump himself envious? Either way, this much is clear: Democracy remains in the crossfire.

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Behold the poll watcher: A rootin', tootin' odyssey in voting, vigilance & vitriol

In 1944, at the height of sustained Allied efforts driving back fascist forces once intent on conquering the world, the U.S. government produced a short film, “Tuesday in November,” focused on voting as the bedrock of American democracy. It began with polling-place officials of different political persuasions gathering early one morning in a vacant school classroom on a peaceful California home front – a campus principal, a streetcar employee and a housewife: “They’ve all known one another for years,” the narrator tells us. “First they remove the last traces of their campaign activities – their party buttons. Then they take the oath. This makes them responsible for seeing that the voting here today takes place according to the laws of the land. And now the polls are open.” First voter: the town milkman, pausing briefly amidst his neighborhood rounds.

This homespun scene, unfolding to the strains of composer Virgil Thomson’s best Americana, is inspiring in that wonderfully naïve and idealistic way Americans like to see themselves. Released in 1945 by the Office of War Information, the 17-minute film was screened overseas, primarily in towns and cities recently liberated by the Allies, as an example of democracy in action, complete with respect for founding American principles, tradition and one another. Yet for too much of our history, this scene has been illusionary; in 1944 alone, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled political parties in Texas (in short, the Texas Democratic Party; Republicans were practically extinct in Texas) could not decide on their own who could vote in their state primaries and who couldn’t – a ruling that sought to end the state’s repeated efforts to keep minority voters out of the polling place. State and federal laws, for good or ill, have made the polling place an increasingly complicated venue. And now legislators of the dominating party in Texas – this time the Republicans – are about to aggravate matters in ways arguably targeting that proverbial principal, streetcar employee and housewife by empowering a figure not seen in the 1944 film but certainly part of the American electoral scene in one form or another since our nation’s early days. Behold the poll watcher.

Texas Senate Bill 7, which supporters describe as an omnibus “election integrity” bill and critics more accurately label a “monster voter restriction bill,” will represent many different rights or restrictions to many different people if passed in present form and signed into law. Chief among them: empowerment of partisan poll watchers, expanding their right to be “near enough to see and hear” election goings-on and stiffening penalties for election officials who dare restrain poll-watcher activities in election venues.

Key problem: Poll watchers in Texas may lack the rigorous training required of polling-place workers regarding election law and polling-place protocols – and, worse still, the bill sets no penalties for poll watchers who overstep their authority and disrupt voting. And such disruptions are a strong possibility. Despite East Texas Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes’ insistence that poll watchers are the “eyes and ears of the public,” the truth is they’re first and foremost the partisan eyes and ears of political candidates and party officials. And given the depths to which politicians and their acolytes often sink, clashes can and will result – and, in fact, already have under present state law, including here in McLennan County.

Don’t misunderstand. Some poll watchers I know take great pride in not only the discipline they demonstrate in heeding state laws governing polling-place activities but the citizenship they exemplify in objectively overseeing elections in McLennan County. Yet even they will acknowledge the existence of those poll watchers who let personal passions for particular candidates or animus for the opposition foul the very democratic nest of our republic. And the prospect of poll watchers being permitted to record suspicious activities – primarily inappropriate or illegal assistance to voters – as provided in legislation now under consideration worries some lawmakers, election workers and voting rights champions, given the supposed sanctity of the polling place. Some fear cell-phone videos could be downloaded on social-media platforms such as YouTube, embarrassing innocent voters. As amended (and with full approval of Sen. Hughes, the bill’s author), SB 7 would outlaw such downloading – a reassuring step if it survives the rest of the rough-and-tumble legislative process. As Senate Bill 7 stands now, a poll-watcher video could only be shared with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office if a polling-place violation is claimed.

Root of the problem

“This could get lost in the discussion, but at the risk of stating the obvious, poll watchers represent multiple political parties,” Hughes stressed of provisions invigorating poll watchers in SB 7, co-authored by our own Republican state Sen. Brian Birdwell. “There are poll watchers from the Democratic Party, there are poll watchers from the Republican Party. These poll watchers are the stand-ins for the public. They’re there to make sure the rules are followed, and it’s important they be able to do their jobs.”

The biggest problem in all this comes from the hostility that politicians themselves whip up among citizenry, including those who might subsequently sign up to be poll watchers with an axe to wield. For instance, during the tumultuous 2020 general election, our own Sen. Birdwell got up at a church in nearby Bellmead and questioned love of country by Americans allied with the Democratic presidential ticket. Yet, as co-author of Senate Bill 7, he would have us believe those Republicans who took him seriously in church and then sign up as poll watchers won’t enter the polling place with venomous biases and intent. (For the record, at this same Oct. 25 Faith & Freedom Coalition prayer and political rally at Church of the Open Door, Sen. Hughes spent his turn at the lectern preaching an old-time sermon in miniature about the importance of obtaining citizenship in heaven “because our good works are not enough.”) Factor in President Trump’s groundless and odious allegations of malfeasance by rank-and-file election officials, despite the fact his own attorney general and his own Department of Justice investigators and prosecutors found no significant evidence of such malfeasance, and you have a potent prescription for trouble when at least some partisan poll watchers enter the scene so neatly and so properly portrayed in 1944.

Similar provisions empowering poll watchers can be found in other legislation percolating in the Texas Legislature, including House Bill 6, a similar omnibus voting bill co-authored by our own Republican state Rep. Charles “Doc” Anderson. HB 6 declares that the poll watcher is instrumental in ensuring the “purity of the ballot box” and that an election official commits a Class B misdemeanor if “the officer intentionally or knowingly refuses to accept a watcher for service.” (One skeptical legislator wondered aloud how one might refuse a poll watcher for service any other way but “intentionally or knowingly.”)

Proposals to further empower and shield poll watchers raise their involvement to the very top of concerns in state election legislation that would also ban the drive-through voting and expanded early voting hours that minority voters in particular enjoyed in congested, pandemic-hobbled Harris County in the 2020 general election. Notwithstanding the fact these county-ordered measures broadening voting seem like great ideas in any proud, self-respecting democracy, they’re admittedly not provided for by state law. And now state law will specifically prohibit them. There’s also a highly questionable degree of meddlesome micromanaging regarding local distribution and placement of voting machines proposed that could mean longer lines for some voters and needless county expense. On the other hand, a toxic provision requiring that disabled citizens furnish documentation proving they’re truly disabled – which critics correctly cited as a de facto poll tax – was removed from Senate Bill 7 before its passage in the upper chamber, though even this could reappear before the Legislature as a whole is finished. Advocates for disabled Texas voters must remain vigilant.

One can understand why a poll watcher might become frustrated under ordinary balloting conditions. State law allows poll watchers to observe almost every aspect of the voting process but the voter’s actual voting. However, state law also forbids them from talking to election workers except to report a suspected violation. And they’re strictly forbidden from conversing or communicating with voters. They’re also forbidden from leaving the polling place without the election judge’s permission unless the poll watcher has worked five consecutive hours.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who specializes in election law, put it best in a ProPublica interview last year: “If you’re waiting for the busloads of fraud to arise, and what you get is small American-flag-waving democracy, you begin to go out of your head. It’s like sitting in a field waiting for the UFOs and the UFOs never show up. And then you’re just sitting in a field, which is fine for a couple hours, but polls are open about 15 hours a day.” And for those poll watchers who suspect the worst by the enemy at the cost of favorites on the ballot, the temptation is to claim skullduggery is afoot and you need more latitude to do your job and catch villainy red-handed. And if your party is in power but increasingly anxious about changing demographics and tightening victory margins every two years, the inclination is to alter voting dynamics in ways that favor your party, not the casual, often unsuspecting voter. Before long, few will be sure what’s legal and what’s not anymore, let alone whether the sky is falling.

Allegations galore!

The situation becomes more volatile when race differences bubble up, as I happened upon as Waco Tribune-Herald opinion editor in 2018 at a polling place in a predominantly black neighborhood of Waco (and on the former campus of a historic black college). Swirling charges and counter-charges of impropriety embroiled the mostly white supporters of a white Republican county commissioner candidate and the mostly black supporters of a black Democratic county commissioner candidate. The candidates vied to succeed McLennan County Commissioner Lester Gibson, a deeply revered figure in Waco’s African-American community. Formal complaints of wrongdoing were lodged against each of the two election judges at the Waco Multi-Purpose Community Center. The Republican commissioner candidate's wife alleged the African-American Democratic presiding election judge was swaying voters to vote Democratic, though five sworn written statements from witnesses claimed otherwise. And no less than the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund accused the white Republican alternate election judge of balking at helping voters cast straight-ticket ballots for Democratic candidates “because it bothered her when individuals supported U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke over U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.” (Footnote: The extremely tight O’Rourke-Cruz contest represented that year’s flashpoint election across Texas, causing many Republicans to contemptuously huff and puff and dismiss the charming Democratic candidate’s Portuguese-Spanish first name as a politically inspired affectation, though my trusted friend, distinguished Texas journalist Carlos Sanchez, an El Paso native like O’Rourke, insists the nickname was given to O’Rourke in his youth by his family. The baseless criticism astounds given that foreign-born Republican Ted Cruz’s first name is Rafael, not Ted.)

African-American election judge Anita Phillips later credited poll watchers for much of the furor at the Waco Multi-Purpose Community Center, "making voters feel uncomfortable and intimidated as they voted, both curbside and inside the vote center. Candidates and poll watchers acted outside their scope to intimidate staff and attempt to intimidate me. My vehicle and license plate were aired on the news as unfounded accusations of voter fraud were reported (and) left me questioning the safety of my family and myself.” White Republican Party Chairman Jon Ker blamed Phillips while acknowledging others acted improperly: "There were accusations back and forth, and there were things that went on that, frankly, if not illegal were highly inappropriate. Electioneering was allowed within the 100-foot limit [of the polling place]. People were talking with voters. A couple of women came in and shot a video and put it on Facebook. Anita Phillips was the election judge.” White McLennan County Democratic Party Chairwoman Mary Duty concurred about overall election dynamics, even as she consistently backed Phillips as blameless in the confusion: “The election in November became very heated. There were a lot of accusations flying both directions. We did our due diligence, took sworn statements from our people and forwarded them to the Secretary of State's Office.” My take from a survey of the busy scene amidst finger-pointing: lots of questionable activity and indignity by all involved, including partisans backing both commissioner candidates. Claims and counter-claims continued simmering well after the 2018 general election before the McLennan County Commissioners Court all the way to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office and, in 2021, the State Capitol.

Nor are countywide, statewide and national races necessary to bring out the worst at the polling place. In a May 2019 municipal election, a poll watcher began hollering and accusing the alternate election judge in Bellmead of changing votes at a computer, then threatened the judge with legal action. At some point, the presiding judge exercised the right given by state law to election judges: Police were summoned. Ironically, this clash involved County Commissioner Lester Gibson’s son Travis, an African-American candidate for the Bellmead City Council, and the white poll watcher tapped by Gibson’s white opponent. County Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe acknowledged the problem in a January 2020 interview conducted by Trib Editor Steve Boggs and me: “Well, we do have a very, very zealous poll watcher in Bellmead and it's the same person for every election, every time they have one. There are laws that govern what they can and can't do. The problem with that is the election judges are just trying to conduct the election. The poll watcher would like to be able to tell the judges what to do and they all want to call and complain.”

Such incidents explain the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s opposition to measures in the Texas Legislature further empowering poll watchers. “This bill appears to transfer authority for the safety and integrity of elections to partisan poll watchers, including by preventing an election judge from removing a watcher from a polling place for any reason other than for an offense related to election fraud, which could encourage voter intimidation,” the civil rights organization and law firm stated in a March 25 letter specifically opposing House Bill 6 but just as relevant concerning other bills. “HB 6 also repeatedly uses the phrase ‘purity of the ballot box’ to justify its aim of emboldening partisan watchers. Comparable language regarding the ‘purity of the ballot box’ that is found in the Texas Constitution has deep ties to calls by white legislators in the state to ensure the ‘purity of the Anglo-Saxon race’ by, among other tactics, disenfranchising black Texans. The discretion HB 6 affords partisan operatives, particularly in a state with a long and well-documented history of official and unofficial discrimination against black and Latino voters under the guise of ‘purity,’ creates a substantial risk of operating to intimidate and disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color.”

Three days earlier the civil rights organization took aim at SB 7: “Election administration should not be partisan, yet SB 7 deputizes political operatives with cameras, empowering them to freely harass and intimidate voters. Although Texas law places limitations on who can serve as a poll watcher – requiring that poll watchers be appointed by either a candidate for office, a political party or a proponent or opponent of a ballot measure – SB 7 deputizes and empowers these political operatives to roam freely and record voters in polling locations, which gives them the ability, if not the right, to engage in voter intimidation. SB 7 specifically eliminates Texas’ previous restrictions on watchers recording voters in polling locations, providing opportunities for watchers to target and harass voters using their images from the polling locations.”


Some of the local controversy spilled over into the House Elections Committee’s 20-hour April Fool’s Day hearing on Chairman Briscoe Cain’s somewhat disjointed HB 6. Linda Jann Lewis, the NAACP Waco chapter’s political action chair also affiliated with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, testified of years of harassment by Republican poll watchers targeting the African-American election judge presiding over the one and only early voting location in the heart of Waco’s African-American community: “Approximately six years ago, there were problems at this early voting location and she did what the [state] election code required. She called the police and had a candidate removed, a Republican candidate removed, because he refused and defied her. He was inside the polling place, shaking hands and soliciting voters. As a result of that, there has been an all-out war on McLennan County’s only presiding African-American election judge. We have had in Waco, Texas, in McLennan County, what we call ‘poll watcher overseer syndrome.’” (The word “overseer,” of course, refers to the often cruel managers of plantation slaves in the antebellum South.) Lewis went on to detail harassment of election workers by Republican-dispatched poll watchers, including one who reportedly dogged an election worker into a break area to watch while the election worker took medication. In parting, Lewis warned partisan aggression was discouraging ordinary election workers – many over age 60 – from enlisting for further duty in the line of fire. “Baby boomers –
we are the people who run the elections,” she said. “Don’t send us to jail because a poll watcher says they think we did something wrong.”

Over in the Senate, Sen. John Whitmire, a white Harris County Democrat regarded as the dean of that chamber by virtue of his 38 years there, added to such allegations during debate with Sen. Hughes on SB 7, noting Republicans typically place poll watchers in sites where they expect to lose votes, if only to disrupt the process. “In my experience, in the fall [elections],” he said tersely, “there are more poll watchers in minority communities than there are in the general community at large. Take my word for it.” Gracious to a fault, Sen. Hughes said he had never seen or heard evidence of this racial targeting by Republican poll watchers, candidates and party officials. (To his credit, Hughes managed committee hearings and floor debate on Senate Bill 7 with patience, professionalism and grace, unlike boyish House Elections Committee Chairman Cain who at one point abruptly ended a hearing on his own bill after refusing to allow questions about it from visiting Rep. Nicole Collier, chairwoman of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. Cain’s apparently bungled procedural move not only highlighted House Speaker Dade Phelan’s exceedingly poor judgment in appointing Cain to chair the committee but effectively sidelined hundreds of Texans who traveled to the State Capitol to testify on HB 6, some in favor of his legislation.) Sen. Whitmire’s argument about the GOP targeting minority strongholds was bolstered days later when a leaked video showed a Harris County Republican Party official enlisting poll watchers to stop “voter fraud” in primarily black and brown neighborhoods.

Who's the alpha here?

Obviously, strong feelings dominate the matter. During House Elections Committee testimony on March 18, Angela Smith, founder of the Fredericksburg Tea Party and a poll watcher through three election cycles, acknowledged that "election judges definitely in our area do believe I am adversarial," though she denied she is. She refuted the prediction by Texas Civil Rights Project senior attorney James Slattery that newly empowered poll watchers would create more disturbances in polling places and election venues sufficient to impede voting or the tallying of votes. "Poll watchers such as myself at Central Count [where votes are tabulated at evening's end] usually arrive around 7 in the morning, and I have left as late as 3 in the morning," Smith said. "This is not an easy job and I take offense when I am demonized as someone who is trying to slow the process or get in the way of any of the election officials. I do not believe this is a partisan issue. I think it is very much bipartisan. I think my friends on both sides of the aisle would agree with that." Other poll watchers offered similar testimony with specific allegations of wrongdoing they had witnessed. “I might just point out that efficiency and processing voters is critical, but so is accuracy,” Tea Party Patriots of Eastland County founding member Ruth York told committee members. “Inaccuracy could disenfranchise someone who is eligible to vote. Unlike some of you here, we don’t get to change our vote if our machine malfunctions or whatever.” However, some battle-hardened election officials predicted that further empowering partisan poll watchers would only unsettle matters for earnest election workers.

“A great majority of our election judges and clerks are really good people who give up a whole lot – the whole day for little pay – to make democracy work,” said David Griggs of Dallas, who has served as an election judge or alternate judge in some 65 elections over 27 years. “Personally, I would never kick out a poll watcher without law enforcement help. They’re there and they have a right to be there. But judges need the authority to maintain control of the vote center, just like a judge would to maintain control and order in the courtroom. This bill opens the door for a disruptive poll watcher to push the envelope and then criminalizes the simple exercise of authority by the election judge to handle it. And with regard to the video provisions of this bill, it allows the poll watchers of their own volition to decide to use a video on their phone to record something. We tell our voters not to use their cell phones, yet we’re going to give poll watchers carte blanche to pull out their phones? I mean, what are voters going to think about this?”

Harold Huff, a former research engineer for the Texas A&M University System and poll worker now living in Terlingua in West Texas' rugged Big Bend region, at one point rose to defend election workers who, given the conspiratorial frame of mind obviously driving some of this Republican legislation, appear suspect in intention and deed. "One thing my grandmother said many, many years ago is that our democracy in the state of Texas is defended by the blue-haired ladies of the polling place," he told state senators, including Birdwell. "It's still defended by those blue-haired ladies. Those are the people who are being discussed as some kind of evil government employees bound to shift our elections wrong. They wouldn't do it on a bet. These are honorable people, strong and caring people, and yet many pieces of legislation including this bill [SB 7] set up criminal penalties and tend to criminalize them ahead of the case, simply by setting these ridiculous requirements. They have to maintain control of their polling places. And the poll watchers are not educated, they're not taught, they're not trained, they don't take oaths that are meaningful in any way. None of this legislation addresses penalties for poll watchers misbehaving. The people running the elections at all levels are attempting to do their very best to have the fairest elections we can have. Poll watchers are there for a fixed interest of one kind or another. And it may be the Democratic Party, it may be the Republican Party. They can be the Proud Boys or the Ku Klux Klan. Any of them are eligible to be a poll watcher."

Even those supporting Republican-crafted election reforms have raised concerns about poll watchers. In voicing her support of House Bill 6, Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne stressed the absolute importance of poll-watcher education. “I hate there’s this myth that seems to be hanging in the air that poll watchers have a chip on their shoulder or they’re evil or that nobody wants to be watched,” she told House members. “I think that is not true. The problem with a lot of poll watchers is they’re sent by a candidate, like you and I, and we just say, ‘Please go watch and see what happens.’ They’re not trained. They really don’t understand the election process.” One poll watcher, who testified that she has worked also as an election judge, backed the bill’s provisions on poll watchers but agreed education is needed for watchers and even polling-place workers. Another who has served as a poll worker since retirement in 2016 offered his solution: inserting the Secretary of State’s handbook on poll-watching straight into the state election code. “Once you’ve done that – because it tells them they can’t talk to a voter, it tells them about going outside for the telephone, it says what they can’t and what they can do – I think if you put that in there, you’ll solve your problem.”

During debate with Sen. Hughes, longtime Democratic Sen. Royce West – a towering African-American attorney whose grandfather reportedly witnessed the infamous 1921 Tulsa race massacre – pointedly questioned the lack of state-regimented training for poll watchers, especially with the video component now being added to the electoral arena. At one point, Hughes dismissed the idea of such training for poll watchers given that few enough poll watchers step forward for duty and that training might further discourage their numbers – an interesting bit of logic, given that polling-place workers and election judges are also increasingly difficult to find because of stiffening penalties for innocent mistakes and stupefying complications added to election law every two years.

“What’s going to end up happening, senator, is that you’re going to have an election worker and you’re going to have a poll watcher who are frankly going to push each other,” West told Hughes. “I think what we’re going to end up seeing are disputes that may turn violent if this becomes law between poll watchers and election administrators. They’re going to be testing each other to figure out who is the alpha in that situation.”

The final irony somehow barely casting a shadow on all this “election integrity” legislation, including poll watchers: precious little evidence of election fraud in Texas. To quote Keith Ingram of the Texas Secretary of State's Office on the 2020 elections: “In spite of all the circumstances, Texas had an election that was smooth and secure. Texans can be justifiably proud of the hard work and creativity shown by local county election officials. I am happy to report Texas elections are in good shape.” Of course, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office works closely with local election officials; state legislators do not.

Son of Big Lie!

Poll watchers who pursue their duties with restraint, discernment and integrity may take umbrage at allegations questioning their noble calling. They shouldn’t. Their resentment should be directed at those among their ranks who approach these honorable citizen tasks with overt partisanship and intentional mischief as their overriding goals and may soon be inspired to commit more deception and more anarchy at the polls. Certainly the question of irresponsible partisan watchdogs prompted a defining moment on the Senate floor when Democratic Sen. Sarah Eckhardt asked SB 7’s author whether he would favor inclusion of non-partisan poll watchers – a question that caught Hughes off guard. His answer is telling: “Hadn’t even thought about it. Sure, I think we should talk about it. I really hadn’t thought about it.”

One can concede video evidence shot by earnest poll watchers – especially avowedly non-partisan poll watchers such as, say, the League of Women Voters of Texas – might sort out allegations and counter-allegations concerning partisan conspiracies and poll-worker competence and integrity. Unfortunately, many Republicans view even the league with suspicion because, while the nonprofit steers clear of endorsing candidates and most ballot issues, it actively encourages voting rights – now anathema to the state and national GOP. (The league’s simply stated mission: “Empowering voters. Defending democracy.”) Certainly non-partisan poll-watching might have added clarity to the allegations so plentiful at the Waco Multi-Purpose Community Center back in 2018. Yet even this recourse will suffer in credibility the first time a doctored and misleading video is uploaded to YouTube in defiance of state law or is dispatched to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office and revealed to be fraudulent or deceptive. In acknowledging how polarizing our times are and how misinformation dominates elections today, Sen. Eckhardt even raised the idea of requiring election workers to wear body cameras, much as many law enforcement officers do, to help prove or disprove allegations of wrongdoing. Whatever else, the proposal suggests that, for all the calls for election integrity in the Texas Legislature and other legislatures across our country, the polling place in America is becoming a war zone, not a crucible of democracy.

For the casual voter briefly visiting the polling place, potential encounters with emboldened partisan poll watchers and other “election integrity“ measures concocted by state legislators this season may represent inconvenience at least, annoyance at most. But for those graying citizens who out of quiet, unshowy, genuine patriotism staff our polling places and facilitate the election of those very same legislators, election duty may seem more and more like combat duty, especially with aggressive poll watchers unleashed on them. I’m reminded of my friend David Gray, a local Democratic Party activist to be sure but, during his duties as an election clerk, a straight-shooting citizen bowing first to the increasingly threatened concept of democracy in America, not the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, David very publicly abandoned his polling-place duties in 2015.

“I acknowledge that candidates have the right to have poll watchers, but in today’s system they’re a complete waste of time,” he wrote in a column for me expressing his frustration. “If they want a candidate elected – and that seems to be the ultimate concern – they should be out getting people to the polls and not standing around the polling places trying to intimidate the voters and clerks. The woman in our midst Saturday was unpleasant, readily accusing everyone of dishonesty all day. I personally believe that if you do not believe fellow citizens can be trusted, it very likely says something about your own trustworthiness. But whatever your belief, you do not have the right to bully anyone anywhere at any time for any reason — particularly at a polling place on Election Day.” Toward the end of the column, he recounted his breaking point: “Toward the end of the day, I finally let the situation get the best of me, and I said things to one of the two women making allegations about the election staff that I should not have said. I let her pull me down to her level — which was very low to start with — and that’s why I will work for this system no more. I simply will not let mean-spirited people like these two women make me a part of the problem.”

Nearly six years have passed since David wrote that column and we’ve seen little abatement of the problem. A few days before my retirement from the Tribune-Herald last November, I discussed my interest in serving as a poll worker with McLennan County Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe, herself just weeks from retirement. Since then, I’ve reconsidered. I’m not particularly bothered by the fact that COVID-19 variants are now spreading, threatening some repeat of the pandemic conditions that made voting so perilous in 2020. I am bothered by Republican lawmakers tripping over themselves to draft and pass legislation targeting election workers. Such pursuits represent a cowardly, knee-jerk reaction by a corrupt party beholden to a corrupt former president and “the Big Lie” that soothes his king-sized ego and reassures deluded disciples and dupes that the votes were always on his side of the disputed election ledger. A few more stormy election cycles must now pass involving election workers, voters and what a Republican Party official enthusiastically described as an “election integrity brigade” overwhelming and disrupting polling places, possibly with the very same twisted, pent-up impulses that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Only after further confrontations, some testy, some possibly violent, will someone in the Statehouse file legislation mandating rigorous training, restrictions and somber oaths for poll watchers and stiff penalties when they get out of line – penalties just as stiff as those now threatening embattled election workers.

Strap on your guns!

Perhaps weary, beleaguered election officials should welcome House Bill 530, which would codify in law Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s non-binding 2018 ruling. To quote the Texas Secretary of State’s subsequent interpretation, “a presiding judge [who] possesses a handgun license is permitted to carry a handgun while serving as an election judge on Election Day in limited circumstances.” The ruling draws from a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals 1913 decision, according to Paxton’s ruling: “That court concluded that because a presiding election judge had the same power as a district judge to enforce order and keep the peace, and because a district judge could carry arms to a polling location, the presiding election judge likewise had authority to do so.” During a March 18 Texas House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee hearing, proponents of HB 530 repeatedly stressed that the right to go armed in the polling place should go beyond the bill at hand and be extended to alternate election judges and clerks, and expanded to include early voting as well as Election Day. One imagines this might serve to restrain and discourage unruly poll watchers who have yet to secure the right to go armed into election venues with anything more than attitudes and recording devices.

“It is difficult for me to ask for more [polling-place] volunteers, especially female volunteers, elderly or disabled volunteers, and ask them to disarm in order to serve the community in remote parts of the county,” said Smith County Republican Women spokeswoman Dee Chambless, who has served as both a poll worker and poll watcher and will be certified to serve as an election judge next election. “I gave up my gun in order to serve. I did so but I didn’t like it. And let’s be honest: The reason why is because there’s a lot of emotion in this [last] election and volunteers were essentially in a gun-free zone for the day because you couldn’t have a gun in the polling place. So I was not able to defend myself if I needed to and I think it’s unfair to ask our volunteers to do so.” Harris County resident Alexie Swirsky, who has worked various duties in elections over the past four years (and wore a black Gun Owners of America “Victory or Death: No Compromise” T-shirt at the committee hearing), said the one time a heated confrontation arose in the polling place in her presence, police didn’t arrive for 45 minutes by which time the dispute had cooled. And too often police don’t understand election law sufficiently to settle matters anyway, she said. “If the police need to be involved,” she said, “I as election judge want them to be able to read the law and easily understand the true meaning of it, so the election can be conducted in proper fashion.”

All this left Democratic state Rep. Rhetta Bowers aghast after recent history: “I just have to say: 2020 was a different kind of election year. I myself did have to call police to a polling-place location, and have been at polling locations where the police did have to be called, and I just don’t know with the divisiveness of the country and sometimes our state if it’s a good idea to have guns at polling locations.” Houston resident John Robert Behrman, retired from a career that included tenure at Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, offered articulate pushback on HB 530: “We may be at the point where unobtrusive and systematic enforcement of existing law is more effective than grandstanding with new laws or other forms of security theater. In particular, I have serious reservation about this bill, which has blossomed – namely, the author of this bill, the attorney general, keeps talking about election judges. There are two kinds of election judges. There’s the presiding judge unless the presiding judge is not there, in which case the alternate judge is presiding, and they are drawn from two different adversarial parties. Introducing guns into that environment strikes me as an arms race. All the election workers there are to protect the voters. You’re not there to protect yourself, you’re there to protect the voters. You take that oath. And it’s labor-intensive work. You have very little ability to be hypervigilant like somebody assigned to [stand guard] at a military installation. You have no situational awareness. These [voters] are right here, and you’re having to pay attention to them individually. You’re in no position to make good defensive use of a pistol.”

Some proposals for compromise were raised, such as ensuring concealed-carry-only protocols prevail; greater involvement by county sheriffs in safeguarding polling places (possibly putting to real work some of those sheriff’s posses usually reserved for parades and little else); and, ironically, the idea of instead arming poll watchers because, Behrman said, “they just sit there in a well-run precinct being bored to tears.” In any case, the committee approved the bill pretty much without any news coverage, sending it on to the full House by a 7-2 vote, only for subsequent House passage of another bill scrapping licenses and training requirements to carry handguns in Texas promising more apprehension and more volatility in the polling place assuming the Senate passes all this legislation. Stay tuned.

Amidst all this, we can but hope for something of the atmosphere that McLennan County Democratic Party chairwoman, former classroom teacher and pizza restauranteur Mary Duty suggested for the serious, mindful business of voting in a Feb. 22, 2020, Tribune-Herald column: “The polling place should be as quiet as a library on the eve before final exams. Silence creates a space where people can think and take their time on balloting choices and longer times are more likely in general elections now that voters can no longer vote straight-ticket with the push of a button (hardly a problem in primary elections). People who disrupt, speak to voters, editorialize on candidates, curse or use racial slurs should be asked to leave.”

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

You may now remove your masks – but don’t

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to lift his statewide mask mandate and most other public health restrictions imposed to battle spread of COVID-19 has spurred what most controversial decisions do. Because it defies common sense and lacks sufficient explanation, confounding even faithful, everyday Republicans here in conservative McLennan County, it has fueled plenty of speculation about his ulterior motives. And that’s rarely a good thing.

One wave of speculation bets that Abbott is less concerned with public health – he reportedly didn’t consult three of his four medical experts before announcing his decision, nor has he gathered in many moons his handpicked Strike Force to Open Texas to advise him. This speculation holds that he’s far more concerned about his political prospects, both presidential in 2024 (assuming former President Trump doesn’t run) and gubernatorial in 2022. Running for president might be easier if one is governor. Of course, that’s assuming he can get past his role in leaving Texans without power and water for days during the recent devastating winter storm.

Consider Abbott’s point of view: Science-scoffing Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerged from last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference with high approval ratings, bolstering any run for higher office. And in Texas, Republican Party of Texas chairman Allen West has for months successfully whipped up Republican resentment against Abbott for his public health measures. Both West and equally colorful Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller appear to be jockeying to challenge Abbott in 2022. And Republican state legislators are now debating how to curtail Abbott’s executive powers.

Solution, at least as Abbott might see it: Lift public health measures just as the Biden administration is ramping up delivery of vaccines to ensure more Americans can get vaccinated sooner. Catch: When not even 10 percent of our state’s population has gotten fully vaccinated, lifting restrictions now strikes rational Texans as another case of the state and federal governments working at cross-purposes.

Other speculation runs darker: The Republican governor supposedly wants to make the Democratic Biden administration look bad despite its aggressively addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in ways the previous administration did not. One way to do so: undermining Biden administration efforts and letting everyone in Texas shed his or her mask in public in the name of economic recovery and individual liberty. The spike in disease can then be blamed on Biden. In short, unleash the online memes. Set loose the talk-radio demi-gods.

Yet it’s always dangerous to assume what motives lurk in the heart of an individual, even a politician – and that’s assuming a politician these days even comes equipped with a heart. So let’s instead judge the governor by his words and deeds, including his remarks lifting the mask mandate in Texas and increasing capacity of all businesses and facilities in the state to 100 percent, meaning more of us in the workplace and places of business, either as employees or customers. (This latest executive order goes into effect today.)

"We must now do more to restore livelihoods and normalcy for Texans by opening Texas 100 percent,” Abbott said. “Make no mistake, COVID-19 has not disappeared, but it is clear from the recoveries, vaccinations, reduced hospitalizations and safe practices Texans are using that state mandates are no longer needed. Today's announcement does not abandon safe practices that Texans have mastered over the past year. Instead, it is a reminder that each person has a role to play in their own personal safety and the safety of others.”

In a perfect vacuum, this makes sense. And clearly the governor is stressing Texans “not abandon safe practices.” Yet one reason Abbott has seen himself labeled “King Abbott” and “tyrannical” by fellow Republicans is that some are concerned about their own individual liberties and pursuit of happiness with no concern whatsoever for the welfare of others in our society. And unfortunately, many of these crazies control critical levers of power in today’s Republican Party of Texas.

Yet for all the brickbats lobbed his way by Chairman West and a handful of carnival barkers in the Texas Legislature, Abbott now foolishly risks giving up the modest credit many of us – Republican, Democrat and independent alike – have lent him in this year-long struggle by surrendering the battle just as vaccine supplies are increased. Defying political logic, Abbott forsakes hard-earned constituent goodwill and trust.

The Texas Restaurant Association, one of the most influential pro-business groups in Texas, quietly applauded the governor’s move but also made clear its anxieties, advising that all restaurant employees continue wearing face coverings when working and that they pass health screenings before each shift. It also recommends social distancing when seating parties. Many restaurants are complying with such advice. They know that unless people feel confident about dining in, many customers will stay away.

Same goes for any business, something Waco native Austan Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, stressed in a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago interview last July, back when many of us still looked desperately for science to produce vaccines: “I always say, ‘The virus is the boss,’ which means the most important thing you can do for the economy is to slow the rate of spread of the virus. So policymakers have got to take every action they can to slow the rate of spread of the virus. The irony is that you don’t need the vaccine in order to do that. Places like Taiwan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand got control of the virus through public health measures and they’re basically back (to pre-pandemic economic levels). I wish we could put a direct focus on the public health aspect.”

Certainly, Dr. Jackson Griggs, who more than anyone in McLennan County has become the public face of medical science, research and common sense in this pandemic, put his best face forward on the governor’s March 2 announcement: "While I am very optimistic that COVID-19 case fatality rates will decrease as vaccination rates climb, it is important to remember that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] still recommends masking any time you are not with members of your own household. Wearing a face covering remains a crucial community-wide practice to slow spread among friends, family and colleagues. If you are in a closed space with non-household members, I strongly encourage the consistent use [of] masking for the safety and health of all."

And consider the hair-raising scene in a waiting room at a local hospital in conservative Central Texas last Thursday afternoon when one patient in conversation with others suddenly blurted out, “Gov. Abbott is trying to kill us all!” The others agreed. A nurse marveling at the conversation before her expressed relief that at least the H-E-B grocery stores so prevalent in the Waco area still require masks of their customers – except that wasn’t quite so. In the wake of the governor’s announcement, H-E-B said masks would be strongly encouraged of customers but no longer mandated. Then it clarified its policy, issuing this statement: “We will continue to expect shoppers to wear masks while in our stores. H-E-B has always been a strong proponent and advocate of mask use even before mandates and orders were passed.” Clear as mud.

The change in tactics invites us to reflect deeply on past COVID-19 victims and the possibility of more such victims, especially when so many Texans defiantly march to Lt. Col. West’s fife-and-drum tune about liberty and continue politicizing mask mandates, travel advisories, physical distancing and vaccines. A graying acquaintance of mine boldly announced she refused to allow the deadly virus to change her life — and so continued her dizzying round of leisurely activities and travel involving everything from casinos to beaches through the very worst of the pandemic. And, of course, the virus did change her life. Her dutiful, soft-spoken husband recently died of COVID-19, robbing her not only of her lifelong companion but the mindful custodian of their financial affairs and a significant livelihood to fund her joyous pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

The very day Abbott's executive order lifting the mandate went into effect, alert Waco Tribune-Herald readers also considered the rich, charitable life of one of our community's latest COVID-19 victims, 76-year-old Susan Lamb, a Texas native who spent 40 years teaching and supporting special education students, including in Waco Independent School District and at the Waco-based Methodist Children's Home. In retirement, she traveled to China to minister and teach English. She became a teacher and mentor to incarcerated youth in Brownwood. To quote her obituary further: "There was never a cat in need that she didn't shower with love and provide with food and shelter. She was committed to helping others, and during her retirement she volunteered for Meals on Wheels, taught piano to adults and shared her love of Christ by teaching Sunday school at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church. Her last words showed her strong commitment to her faith and desire to see her [late] husband and parents [with] her final words to family being: ‘I got something to do and somewhere to go.’" She died of COVID-19 two days before the mask mandate was lifted by the governor.

Which raises a relevant question: Will lifting the mask mandate at this critical juncture truly safeguard Texans and others moving forward? As popular scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson noted last week about Abbott's decision and similar decisions in other states: "To abolish mask-wearing laws in some states while the rest of the nation keeps theirs is like designating a peeing section in a swimming pool."

If this were the wartime equivalent President Trump sometimes talked about in 2020, not only would Gov. Abbott’s courage on his particular field of battle be justifiably questioned with last week’s executive order, so would his sanity as a responsible leader. Whether you like President Biden or not, the cavalry is on the horizon. The bugle is blowing. It’s no time to send up the white flag when Texas can sacrifice and struggle a few months more and edge closer and closer to that cherished herd immunity that most folks – even Republicans – agree will significantly safeguard us.

A week ago my wife and I got our second Moderna shots at Baylor University’s McLane Stadium. (We got our first shots at the city convention center in downtown Waco.) I cannot stress how deeply impressed I was with this wonderfully organized, efficient and cordial collaboration between city-county public health officials, Baylor Scott & White staffers, Baylor University and an army of friendly, patient volunteers. The open-air process at McLane took less than a half-hour and we never even had to leave the comfort of our car.

City officials tell me the only thing holding back accelerating such efforts into hyper-drive is the supply of vaccine.

“We have told the state [that] our public health district can receive and distribute significantly more vaccines – up to 10,000 a week – but we’re still only getting 1,500,” Waco Mayor Dillon Meek told me. “Further, we have extensively advocated for additional vaccines. We’ve called and sent written letters discussing our need to every level of higher leadership. We also developed a Waco Strategic Vaccination Procurement Taskforce, composed of public health workers, lobbyists, health care experts and government leaders to ensure we’re presenting the right data to get more vaccines to Waco.”

In short, once again that government closest to the people is working most aggressively to obtain herd immunity in our region. Meanwhile, state government is arguably mixing public welfare with political motives and machinations.

By standing strong on the mask mandate imposed last summer, Gov. Abbott gave much-needed political cover to countless mayors and county judges (including Meek, his mayoral predecessor Kyle Deaver and McLennan County Judge Scott Felton) whenever the complainers among us griped and whined about the discomfort of masks and suppressed liberties and such. Local leaders, so often vilified by state lawmakers, could in this one crisis explain that, whatever else, the mandate was issued by the governor and that all of us must try to abide for everyone’s sake. For once, it seemed, most of us were on the same page.

Even friends of mine with whom I seldom agree on politics have expressed surprise in the governor’s about-face in all this. And while they aren’t necessarily trying to deduce the governor’s motives for abruptly dropping our collective guard, they’ve also made clear they personally don’t plan on changing their daily routines of precaution and vigilance. They’re going to keep masking up, staying properly distanced and limiting travel, especially with potentially insidious viral variants increasingly prevalent.

Maybe questioning Abbott’s ulterior motives isn’t fair, but then he didn’t exactly help matters when, in response to President Biden’s criticizing the lifting of mask mandates as “Neanderthal thinking,” the governor charged the Biden administration has been “releasing immigrants in South Texas that have been exposing Texans to COVID.”

As my former Tribune-Herald opinion page colleague, veteran newswoman Sandra Sanchez, stressed in her Tuesday account about Abbott for Border Report, the situation involving immigrants and COVID-19 is somewhat complicated, involves multiple agencies and initiatives and, yes, leaves plenty of room for finger-pointing at both the Biden and Abbott administrations. To his credit, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, took the high ground during Abbott’s sputtering press conference in Mission Tuesday, stressing specific solutions in the context of a robust state-federal collaboration; Abbott by contrast spent more time inflaming matters, likely further indication of what’s actually on his mind these days.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume for a moment the undocumented immigrants being released into Texas society are indeed COVID-ridden, every single one of them, rather than, say, a small percentage: What’s the smartest course of action Texans can pursue to protect themselves short of driving into the Rio Grande anyone who simply looks like an immigrant? How about masking up and staying physically distanced a few months more till more and more of us have up to 95 percent protection against being infected by immigrants or anyone else close by, including all those Republicans who loudly refuse to mask up or physically distance or get COVID-19 vaccinations?

In the end, Abbott is clearly rolling the dice not just on his political fortunes but on the chance that lifting the mask mandate won’t prompt another surge in hospitalizations and death, even as viral variants threaten to complicate matters in terms of spread and lethality. The irony? Regardless of what you think of Abbott’s words and deeds of late, we all have an interest in seeing to his success in this reckless and self-serving gambit, given that the ones who might pay the greatest price otherwise are our friends, neighbors and loved ones.

In short, keep masking up – and when in public, avoid the unmasked like the plague. They might be just that.