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Democrats wont be rallying voters with claims they can flip control of the Texas Legislature in the general election a year from now.

The redistricting maps nearing approval in the current special legislative session make that a near impossibility.

Missing their last chance to win a majority in the Texas House in 2020 remember that Turn Texas Blue battle cry? was politically expensive for the states Democrats. It meant the new political maps drawn to fit the new 2020 census would be tailored by Republicans, for Republicans, and that Democrats wishes would end up in the dustbin or, at best, in the courts.

Thats whats happening, and those are the maps that will be used in the 2022 elections. Theyre not quite law yet but will be soon, and they are markedly more Republican than this conservative states recent voting history.

Because those maps almost guarantee Republican majorities in the states congressional delegation, in the Texas House and Senate, and in the State Board of Education, the 2022 elections will really be about the executive branch. The odds there arent great for the Democrats, either.

In the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump got 52.1% in Texas and Joe Biden got 46.5%. With that baseline, Republicans should have 78 seats in the House, 16 in the Senate, 20 in the congressional delegation and eight on the SBOE. In the new maps, voters in 85 of the House districts favored Trump, along with 19 Senate districts, 25 congressional districts and nine SBOE districts.

The proposed maps favor Republicans more than the states voters do. But even if they were precisely representative of how Texans voted in the last statewide elections, the GOP would have an edge: They won all of those contests.

Whatever else you might say about that situation whether its to the majority go the spoils or gerrymandering is undemocratic those are the maps that will be used in the 2022 elections. And if they arent given wholesale makeovers, they strongly favor Republican candidates and are designed to keep Republican majorities in all four places.

Democratic candidates havent won a statewide election in Texas since 1994. Midterm elections those that fall between presidential elections are typically hard on the party of whoever is in the White House. Thats a Democrat right now, and Republicans running for office in Texas (and everywhere else in the country) will be campaigning against whichever Biden administration policy happens to be most unpopular with voters at the time.

To top it off, the Democrats do not yet have a standard-bearer, though it would be a surprise at this point if former U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke of El Paso did not enter the governors race before the start of the holiday season. While there has been a lot of conversation about who else might run for this or that, that late-forming Democratic ticket shortens the time available to raise the money and build the public reputation and recognition needed to win a statewide election. It takes time to become a household name, even if only the political households in the state are in the audience.

Having missed their shot at real influence on the maps, Texas Democrats start the next decade trying to find ways to win on Republican turf. At the end of the last decade, their biggest advances came in legislative races, particularly in the Texas House.

The new maps will make that difficult, particularly in the next couple of election cycles. The current maps were drawn in 2010 by Republicans trying to bolster their majorities, then tinkered with by federal judges who found intentional racial discrimination by lawmakers and other problems in the designs of some districts. Over the next 10 years, the states growth and changing politics eroded that advantage. That might happen again between now and 2030, but that wont help the Democrats in 2022.

Their best chances are at the top of the ballot, where Republican incumbents are known to voters and have money, organization and an undefeated winning record that stretches back more than a quarter of a century. Those chances arent all that great; theyre just better than the chances Democrats have for legislative majorities.

Judging by their governing record this year, the Republicans starting with Gov. Greg Abbott are most worried about competition from members of their own party in next years primaries. Theyre defending their right flanks from conservatives, not their left flanks from liberals.

Its not hard to see why.

See more here:
Analysis: Texas redistricting leaves Democrats with poor 2022 odds - The Texas Tribune

Democratic fundraising giant ActBlue says it raised more than $305 million in the third quarter, more than tripling its totals over the same period in 2017, the most recent comparable election cycle, according to documents first obtained by The Daily Beast.

The internal data shared with The Daily Beast shows the Democratic money machine marked dramatic increases across the board. Raw totals of donors and contributions both more than doubled over this point in the previous midterm cycle, as did the amount of cash funneled to Democratic House and Senate candidates, many of whom face tight races in 2022.

That $305 million came from 2 million individual contributors, with an average donation amount of $35.26. And the combination of gifts to outside groups and to candidates at the federal, state, and local levels brings ActBlues sitewide totals on the year to an eye-popping $906 million.

ActBlue executive director Erin Hill provided a statement touting the platforms responsiveness.

Grassroots donors are not letting up the gas pedal as we head into 2022, Hill said. This quarter particularly showed that donors are ready to mobilize at a moments notice and committed to supporting candidates and causes long-term. As donors fuel movements and expand their investment in campaigns and organizations demanding change, theyre setting the stage for the pivotal midterm year.

In Q3 of 2020a record-busting yearActBlue pulled in $1.5 billion. And while midterms dont carry the same high stakes, it appears Democratic candidates have found their fundraising footing, even without President Donald Trump in the White House as a foil.

Still, Democrats have a daunting task ahead of them to keep the House of Representatives, with Republicans redistricting enough seats that they should start the midterms at a small advantage, even though Democrats currently hold the House by four seats.

Democrats also hold the Senate with a 50-50 split and Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking vote. But the map for whos up in the Senate should slightly benefit Democrats, as two GOP incumbents in purple statesRichard Burr (R-NC) and Pat Toomey (R-PA)arent running for re-election, and Democrats are hopeful about turning seats like Ron Johnsons in Wisconsin.

Campaign finance reports filed over the last week show both parties have already raised a staggering amount of money, with even House candidates regularly turning in million-dollar quarterly sums. The two party committees dedicated to re-electing members of the House have accumulated a combined $128 million this year, according to the federal filings.

But ActBlues numbers indicate that Democrats are activated at the state and local levels as well, nearly tripling its receipts in gubernatorial and state legislative contests alike over 2017.

Gubernatorial races in particular have attracted donors. ActBlue recorded triple the amount of contributors to those races over Q3 2017, distributing tens of millions of dollars to Democratic candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and to defending the GOP effort to recall Californias Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, which failed last month. Virginias Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who finds himself neck-and-neck with GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin, has posted more than $30 million overall, including his ActBlue receipts.

Democrats are starting to fill war chests on an even more granular level, however, indicating grassroots activism efforts have found traction. ActBlue says it nearly tripled what it raised for state attorneys general candidates compared to the same period in 2017, and about three in four of those donors had never given to a state AG through ActBlue.

And as Republicans focus on election administration in the wake of state-level challenges to the 2020 election, ActBlues data evinces a Democratic responsepulling in more than five times the amount raised for secretary of state candidates in Q3 2017.

But like WinRed, ActBlue relies heavily on recurring small-dollar contributions. After the 2020 fundraising bonanza, that practice came under scrutiny from attorneys general in several states. And while the number of ActBlue donors more than doubled over Q3 2017, the average contribution amount appears more or less equal, about $35 to $34.

This quarter, recurring donations accounted for about $57 million of ActBlues receiptsabout 20 percent.

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Democrats Are Winning the Race to Raise the Most Cash Online - The Daily Beast

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 19: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) departs a press conference ... [+] at the U.S. Capitol September 19, 2019 in Washington, DC. Pelosi and House Democrats introduced legislation intended to lower prescription drug prices.Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

As part of their spending bill, Congressional Democrats are advancing legislation that'll empower Medicare to "negotiate" drug prices in the program's Part B and Part D benefits. They insist this policy enjoys broad support among voters.

But they're misleading the public.

What Democrats are proposing is in fact a sweeping system of price controls. Evidence from abroad demonstrates that such schemes are certain to restrict access to new medicines, particularly for those who are older, living with disabilities, or fighting serious illnesses.

To the extent that Americans support "negotiations," it's only because they've been lied to.

The two drug-pricing reforms under consideration by Congressional Democrats would give the Department of Health and Human Services immense power to dictate the prices Medicare pays for drugsan arrangement more akin to a shakedown than a negotiation.

Under the House proposal, the price that Medicare pays for the most popular brand-name drugs would be capped at 120% of the average price paid in six foreign countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Companies that refuse to sell their medicines at this artificially low price would be subject to an excise tax of as much as 95% on each drug's gross sales.

In other words, drug companies would be given a choice: Either submit to the government's pricing demands, or forfeit nearly every penny a medicine earns.

The Senate Finance Committee's proposal takes a domestic tack, limiting Medicare's drug prices to the prices the Department of Veterans Affairs' health system pays.

In deciding prices, the VA and the governments of Canada, the UK, and other nations calculate what they are willing to pay for certain drugs with a metric known as a quality-adjusted life year or QALY.

Take my native Canada. By some estimates, that government's drug-pricing board values one year of perfect health at $50,000 Canadian (or about $40,000 US). From this benchmark, the government can then calculate whether a drug extends a patient's life sufficiently to justify its costs. If it fails this test, the government doesn't cover the medicine.

There is plenty to find reprehensible about such analyses. For one, they place a dollar value on human lifesomething no government should do.

Such analyses also lead to severe restrictions on which drugs patients can access. Of the new medicines launched between 2011 and 2018, for instance, fewer than half were available to Canadian patients. And just 60% were available to patients in the UK. By comparison, American patients had access to nearly 90%.

QALY analyses are also inherently discriminatory, as they place less value on the lives of sick and disabled patients compared to healthy ones. In practice this means that health systems which rely on QALY calculations are less willing to pay for medicines that benefit chronically ill patients or those with physical impairments.

By basing Medicare's drug prices on those paid at the VAor Canada and the UK among otherslawmakers are in fact smuggling discriminatory QALY-based policies into Medicare through the backdoor.

These facts rarely reach patients, of course, which is why the idea of drug price "negotiations" polls well. But as I detail in a new issue brief, when Americans learn the facts about price-control policies, they reject them by wide margins.

In a recent survey of likely voters, nearly 78% opposed the use of QALYs under Medicare. When told that the Democrats' drug-pricing policies would likely restrict access to medicines for older Americans and those with disabilities, 72% said they were less likely to support the reform.

After learning that these reforms would take treatment decisions out of the hands of doctors, leaving them to bureaucrats and their calculations of the value of a human life, three quarters of voters were less likely to support these reforms.

Democrats aren't looking to encourage "negotiations." They're simply trying to save the government money on drugs by dictating the price. Their strategy for achieving this goal is to deny access to the latest medicationsespecially to the oldest and sickest patients.

This policy will garner public support only to the extent Democrats continue to hide the truth.

Here is the original post:
Democrats Drug Pricing Reforms Arent What They Seem - Forbes

America has a lot of free stuff. Get to the United States and you will be able to have nearly everything taken care of by the U.S. government. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom held by many migrants who make the journey from Central America through Mexico to our southern border, and eventually, with our lax immigration policies, into America.

It should be noted that two of the many reasons why the Roman Empire failed is because they were unable to protect their borders and the lavish spending of its Emperor Nero, which brought on an economic recession.

Countries have borders, which they control for their own protection. Most countries allow new people to enter only systematically, legally. We forget this point, or the Biden administration is not able to manage this situation.

Forget about the risk of spreading COVID-19 and the possible encroachment of drug cartels and the drug trade, the impact of which play an integral role in the carnage on our streets, many of these people could be seeking to do us harm in other ways.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the border czar, was seeking the root cause. That is as clear as asking why birds fly to get from one point to another. Answer: America gives free stuff!

Let us start with food, shelter, education and health care, including Medicaid. The Democrats, if they get their way with their Build Back Better $3.5 trillion package, would be able to hand out free community college, as well as free universal pre-K, free family leave, free child care. There would be little the U.S. government would not provide even for someone forcing their way into America. So, why not make the journey?

Who pays?

By law, some entitlements have established the means/resources to always be able to pay its recipients, at least theoretically, such as Social Security and Medicare. Other entitlements like food nutrition programs and housing assistance are far more unruly and pay out to recipients from tax revenues or tax increases from the rest of society. The latter are considered a safety net for deserving and needy Americans.

The Democrats want to increase the latter group, plus expand Medicare benefits, which could be fatal to our fiscal stability. Already we spend 62% of our budget on entitlements, 8% on servicing our nearly $29 trillion debt, and 15% on our national defense. This leaves only three nickels for all discretionary spending. Going beyond adds to the $29 trillion debt.

To say that the new programs filled with FREE STUFF will be paid for at least for X number of years is being disingenuous. It is not like Social Security or Medicare. In those programs we all contribute via our FICA and through Medicare deductions from our paychecks. Those dollars are placed in a trust account within the federal government. Those of working age help fund the respective trust accounts so those who are retired rightfully have those promised benefits.

Primary and secondary education is provided for every American as we pay for it in state and local taxes, mainly property taxes. The extension of free education for all pre-K children must also have a permanent revenue stream or else it will be added to our $29 trillion national debt.

All new programs must have a permanent source of revenue as there has never been a social entitlement program that has not become permanent.

So, the breachable border and getting FREE STUFF is where we stand today in Congress. Democrats refuse to see or address one of Americas biggest crises.

Gary Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticuts 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New Englands first Black member of the House. He is the host of the podcast We Speak Frankly and author of With God, For God, and For Country.

Go here to read the rest:
Franks: Democrats ignore crisis they contribute to at southern border - Boston Herald

Dallas County commissioners will begin considering new redistricting options this week, and the efforts could favor Democratic candidates in future elections.

Every decade, the county redraws its electoral maps with new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Just like legislators in Austin are deciding state House and Senate boundaries, and the Dallas City Council will debate new districts, the Commissioners Court is tasked with adjusting its own lines based on population and demographic changes.

Technically, the commissioners do not have to redraw the district lines. The countys population grew by more than 245,000 since the last census to 2.6 million, but the distribution of residents didnt shift enough to force a change in the maps.

However, demographic differences give the Democratic-led Commissioners Court a chance to strengthen the voting power of minority groups. Over the past decade, the percentage of white non-Hispanic residents in the county dropped from 33% to 28%, while the Hispanic population grew from 38% to 40%. The number of Black residents has remained steady at 22%.

The Commissioners Court begins public hearings Tuesday on three options all of which dilute Republican voting power while solidifying Democratic control.

Especially in northern Dallas District 2, Commissioner J.J. Koch, the five-member courts lone Republican, said the suggested maps could shut him and other GOP candidates out.

[The maps] are a little bit shocking, Koch said. If that isnt gerrymandering, I dont know what is.

But the maps also will improve the voting power of Hispanics and keep cities grouped in single districts, which Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said was one of his primary goals in redistricting.

Its hard to draw these districts on a purely political basis, Jenkins said. The map should hold together communities of interest.

Heres what voters need to know about the countys redistricting process and how to weigh in:

Earlier this year, the county hired three outside consultants to review the Census data and propose new district lines.

The most important requirement is for each district to have the same general population. Districts must also comply with the Voting Rights Act by not discriminating against minority communities.

Jenkins who holds a countywide seat and is not bound by a specific district said that can often lead to partisan conflicts.

Theres no way to do redistricting where everyone is happy, Jenkins said. Its more personal than just about anything to the commissioners because its their district.

The Commissioners Court will determine districts for four members as well as five justice of the peace districts and five constable precincts. First, the county will decide the Commissioners Court districts, since those are affected by the population and the number of residents must be evenly distributed in each district.

The justice of the peace and constable districts will be decided later, and will be determined by evenly distributing the workload that comes out of each rather than the population. Justices of the peace preside over misdemeanor courts, small civil cases, landlord disputes and evictions. They can also perform marriage ceremonies. Constables are law enforcement officers who serve warrants and civil papers like subpoenas and restraining orders.

Technically the current maps do not need to change at all. The countys population distribution didnt change enough to make a difference in the Commissioners Court districts.

The population change in each district must remain under 10% on any new court-approved map. According to new census data, District 1 which encompasses much of East Dallas and is represented by Theresa Daniel changed the most with only a 1.7% decrease.

Commissioners on Tuesday will consider three new maps, and the options are available on the countys website.

In the 2020 election, all four Commissioners Court districts voted primarily for Democrats. The only toss-up was District 2, represented by Koch. Voters in that district were split 54% in favor of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and 51% in favor of Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

But according to an analysis from The Dallas Morning News, the three proposals would all cede some Republican votes to districts 1, 3 and 4 all Democratic strongholds while giving Democrats a slight edge in Kochs too-close-to-call district.

For example, Koch said two of the map options would stretch Commissioner John Wiley Prices southern Dallas district north through Rowlett, a Republican stronghold.

All of them kind of cut me off from Anglo Republicans, Koch said, which is not something theyre supposed to be doing.

Price said his goal in redistricting is to think ahead about how each districts demographics will shift over the next decade and protect the voting power of minority communities. What they decide now will help determine the courts makeup in years to come, Price said.

Well always have some conversation about what you think is prescient, Price said. All youve got to do is see how its trending.

Redistricting rules mandate that similar groups of voters should not be split between districts because it would marginalize or dilute their voting power. Koch said that by taking portions of his Republican-voting district and splitting them among other commissioners, the court could disenfranchise white voters, who make up 28% of the countys population.

Theyre cracking the white Republicans to make it an all-Democratic court in the next 10 years, Koch said. They have the power of the pen.

In 2011, the court approved a new map based on the 2010 Census, which gave District 1 more Democratic voters. Daniel, a Democrat, was elected to the new district in 2012, replacing Republican Maurine Dickey.

A group of white residents sued Dallas County in federal court in 2015, saying the 2011 redistricting process was discriminatory toward white, Republican voters. The suit was thrown out by a federal judge, who said their voting power has been strengthened, rather than diluted, by the concentration of Anglos in [precinct 2] where they can reliably elect a Republican candidate.

The county has scheduled two public hearings. They will both be at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday and Nov. 2 at the Dallas County Administration Building, 411 Elm St. Members of the public can also register online to attend virtually at the countys website.

Read the rest here:
Dallas County is redrawing boundaries, benefitting Democrats. Heres why it matters to voters - The Dallas Morning News