John Carter Can’t Stop Lying About Mary Beth Harrell; Things SCOTUS Redistricting Ruling Was A Victory For GOP

As if journeying to Iraq only to run into the son of his opponent wasn’t enough of a gaffe for Congressman John Carter (R-Round Rock), he’s now catching heavy flack for sending out a fund-raising letter that makes false statements about his Mary Beth Harrell (R-Killeen), calls the Supreme Court’s ruling on Texas Redistricting a victory and misstates the court’s ruling itself.

This month, Carter sent out a letter to his Republican supporters (some of whom obviously aren’t very supportive, given that they’re giving his opponent copies of his letter) in hopes that the very thought that his district could become more Democratic if redrawn to remedy CD-23 would scare the hell out of his base and make them open their wallets wide and start throwing money at his campaign with wanton disregard for anything else.

However, Carter’s letter not only attacked and lied about Mary Beth Harrell, it made some stupid and untrue statements about redistricting as well. To wit:

The Supreme Court ruling last week on the Texas redistricting case was a huge win for the people of Texas and the Republican Party. We won on every major point of contention.

I’m sorry, but it appears Congressman Carter and the rest of the world were reading two separate redistricting decisions. Maybe Congressman Carter just read the GOP Cliff Notes version of LULAC v. Perry for Dummies, but the case was in no way a “huge win” for the Republican Party. It was a win for the Latino voters in South and West Texas. It was a win for the Republicans only because they can now engage in worshipping at the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Redistricting all across the land.

As for winning on “every major point of contention,” evidently Congressman Carter doesn’t realize that the unconstitutional racial gerrymander of CD-23 was a “major point of contention” in the litigation on which the Republicans had their ass handed to them on a silver platter complete with parsley and toothpicks.

Of course, when you vote against the Voting Rights Act as Congressman Carter did, it is understandable that he wouldn’t understand this. Which is also why he made this utterly mind-numbing statement:

The problem is that the Supreme Court ruled that the Hispanic population in one of the congressional districts was not sufficiently compact. That means the Hispanic voters in the district were too spread out. This has the potential to play havoc on several members of the Texas delegation because the 3-Judge Panel in Texas is now charged to find a remedy to this problem. At least two and maybe more of our congressional districts will have to be redrawn.

The underlined emphasis, by the way, is as it appears in the letter. I’ll explain that in a minute.  First, though, let’s look at what Congressman Carter said about CD-23.

What the court actually ruled was not just that the district was not compact enough:

Texas’ redrawing of District 23’s lines amounts to vote dilution violative of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I’m sorry, Justice Kennedy, could you repeat that for me, please? Did you say it VIOLATED THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT?

What’s that Congressman Carter, you VOTED AGAINST the Voting Rights Act? That’s right! Well, that explains a lot.

In order to come up with this astounding and surprising conclusion (note my heavy snark), the Supreme Court had to determine that the district met the three-prong test for establishing a Section 2 violation as outlined in the 1980s in the Gingles decision I mentioned last week.

The three prong test doesn’t just mean that a district’s minority population isn’t sufficiently comact enough:

A State violates §2 “if, based on the totality of circumstances,it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election . . . are not [as] equally open to . . . members of [a racial group as they are to] other members of the electorate.” 42 U. S. C. §1973(b).

Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50–51, identified three threshold conditions for establishing a §2 violation: (1) the racial group must be “sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district”; (2) the group must be “politically cohesive”; and (3) the white majority must “vot[e] sufficiently as a blocto enable it . . . usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.”The legislative history identifies factors that courts can use, once all three threshold requirements are met, in interpreting §2’s “totality ofcircumstances” standard, including the State’s history of voting-related discrimination, the extent to which voting is racially polarized, and the extent to which the State has used voting practices or procedures that tend to enhance the opportunity for discriminationagainst the minority group. See id., at 44–45. Another relevant consideration is whether the number of districts in which the minoritygroup forms an effective majority is roughly proportional to its shareof the population in the relevant area. Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1000. The district court’s determination whether the §2 requirements are satisfied must be upheld unless clearly erroneous.See Gingles, supra, at 78–79. Where “the ultimate finding of dilution” is based on “a misreading of the governing law,” however, there is reversible error. De Grandy, supra, at 1022. Pp. 18–20.
(c) Appellants have satisfied all three Gingles requirements as toDistrict 23, and the creation of new District 25 does not remedy the problem.
The second and third Gingles factors—Latino cohesion, majoritybloc voting—are present, given the District Court’s finding of raciallypolarized voting in the District 23 and throughout the State. As to the first Gingles precondition—that the minority group be large andcompact enough to constitute a majority in a single-member district, 478 U. S., at 50—appellants have established that Latinos could have had an opportunity district in District 23 had its lines not been altered and that they do not have one now. They constituted a majority of the citizen voting age population in District 23 under Plan1151C. The District Court suggested incorrectly that the district was not a Latino opportunity district in 2002 simply because the incumbent prevailed. The fact that a group does not win elections does not resolve the vote dilution issue. De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1014, n. 11.

How bad is it when a Congressman misrepresents the results of a Supreme Court decision to his constituants?

As for those underlined words, clearly Carter was trying to make the Republicans of his district wet their pants at the possibility that his district might be redrawn. Never mind the fact that I don’t think anyone ever discussed the possibility (at least, seriously) of any redrawing altering the boundaries of Carter’s 31st District or the fact that none of the proposed remedies alter the district either. Of course, such facts aren’t likely to make cash fly out of the wallets of his contributors like the fear they could be represnted by a liberal, New York Lawyer.

Say what? That’s what I said.

It seems as though that’s how Carter is now refering to Democrat Mary Beth Harrell (D-Killeen). Sounding like the ghost of Richard Nixon criticizing Hillary Clinton, here’s what Carter says:

I was already expecting a nasty campaign this fall. My opponent is an attorney from New York who now lives in Killeen.

I’m sorry, but that is just stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Harrell has lived in Texas since 1987.  Intimating that Harrell is an attorney from New York is also incorrect. She attended St. Mary’s Law School in San Antonio. She’s been a city prosecutor for several central Texas cities. If Mr. Carter, a practicing lawyer until 1981, had bothered to check the online records of the State Bar of Texas, he’d have known this.
Here’s what Mary Beth had to say:

“My opponent’s letter - and reality - don’t measure up,” and Harrell continued, “like many Central Texans I wasn’t born in Texas, but as they say, I got here as fast as I could. By the way, my husband and I actually live on a beautiful little place just outside of Gatesville.”

Oh, for the record: Carter was born in Houston. He did his undergraduate work in Lubbock. Neither of these is in his district, either.  If he’s attempting to claim that he’s native to his district, that’s not true.
Look at Carter’s other bogus claim:

She has attacked me for securing money for the soldiers and families at Ft. Hood.

Oh, but no. Hell no. No, no, no, no, no, he didn’t go there. But, since he did, please allow me the privilige of handing back to him a gold-plated platter laden full of facts:

Mary Beth Harrell didn’t attack Carter for securing needed money for soldiers and their families at Fort Hood.

Harrell pointed out to voters—along with about half a dozen government waste watchdog groups, local, state and national media—that, instead of making sure money went to needed projects, Carter was simply rolling the pork barrel by securing a $6.8 million appropriation for a new gym at Fort Hood after the Abrams Physical Fitness Center—one of six already at Fort Hood—had just been renovated and was billed as “one of the Army’s top fitness centers.”

None of us begrudge our soldiers stationed at Fort Hood—least of all, Harrell, who has two grown sons in the military—the luxury of a gym, or even several gyms for the large population. But a SEVENTH GYM at a cost of $6.8 MILLION is a little much. Note, however, Harrell said not one word about the $4.65 million Carter acquired for Fort Hood for a fire station, even though watchdog groups deemed that unnecessary pork.

Here is some of Harrell’s response to Carter’s incendiary claim:

“As an Army family, we lived and worked on Fort Hood. Our youngest boy attended school on Fort Hood,” Harrell said, “And yes, I strongly disagree with my opponent’s proposal to waste nearly seven million dollars on a seventh gym for Fort Hood when soldiers, their family members, and veterans urgently need more money for health
care. There’s something patently wrong with the federal government’s spending priorities when Fort Hood currently does not have enough money to pay its bills, or repair and return equipment needed in Iraq.”

Harrell clearly has a point.

More Carter whining:

She has attacked me for inheriting stock from my father who worked his entire life to accumulate these assets to provide for his family’s security.

Once again, Carter probably should have kept his mouth shut.

All of this stems from Harrell’s calling of Carter on the carpet because he held a press conference about high gas prices at a Shell gas station but has never discussed the facts that he has a multi-million dollar trust fund of ExxonMobile stock.

As a result of being an oil millionaire, Carter has refused to consider a windfall profits tax on big oil, close tax loopholes the oil companies take advantage of, or generally do anything whatsoever that might actually cause oil prices to go down.

Harrell was simply pointing out the hypoisricy in Carter’s actions, not condemning him for the fact that he inherited the stock.

Now is a great time to help Mary Beth take Congressman Carter out of the game. Donate to Mary Beth’s campaign online here.

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