Today, the Supreme Court tossed out the work of a district court that attempted to force its own electoral maps on the state of Texas, while ignoring the maps drawn by the Texas legislature. The unanimous decision is a major victory for constitutional federalism, and a blow to runaway judicial activism. Drawing electoral districts is one of the core responsibilities of state legislatures, and a vital part of the democratic process, and the federal courts have at least paid lip service to the principle that legislator-passed electoral maps are due significant …
When it comes to creating jobs, North Dakota has found the right formula. The state has the largest percentage increase in employment over the past year and was the fastest of all 50 to recover from the recession. The reason is simple: energy production. “North Dakota has been the poster child for what can happen when we unleash free enterprise and allow states to develop and commercialize their resources,” Heritage’s Nick Loris wrote recently on The Foundry. “North Dakota is drilling at record pace.” The state’s unemployment rate is 3.4 …
“I feel very, very badly for the children there,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan this week. No, he wasn’t talking about underprivileged children in South America, malnourished kids in Africa, or children in war-ravished regions throughout the world. No, the Secretary was referring to children in Texas. According to Bloomberg News: Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Texas’ school system “has really struggled” under Gov. Rick Perry…and the states’ substandard schools do a disservice to children. “Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to …
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to ensure that everything is bigger in Texas, including the state’s electricity rates and unemployment lines. On July 7, the EPA adopted a rule to place even more stringent regulations on sulfur dioxide emissions that could shut down the use of lignite coal in Texas. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson assured Texans that their economy and coal production would be just fine: Texas has an ample range of cost-effective emission reduction options for complying with the requirements of this rule without threatening reliability or the …
Here’s an amazing statistic: Texas created 37 percent of all jobs since the beginning of the economic recovery, more than any other state. Excluding New York and Pennsylvania, Texas has created nearly as many jobs as all other states combined. How did Texas do it? According to the Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, “Texas is doing so well relative to other states precisely because it has rejected the economic model that now prevails in Washington. . .all states labor under the same Fed monetary policy …
The private sector is where its at; less bureaucracy, more opportunity to advance and the ability to create and maintain jobs even in the midst of a recession. It certainly kept Texas on its feet and winning the jobs race by a landslide in the past decade. According to a new study from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Lonestar state added 732,000 private sector jobs in the past 10 years, while no other state added more than 100,000. In fact, only 19 states plus the District of Columbia …
Union members in Massachusetts support Senator Scott Brown (R). So it is perhaps surprising to see Massachusetts unions announcing their plans to target him for defeat. Or perhaps not. Union bosses, not union members, decide how to spend union dues. Union bosses oppose Brown’s efforts to cut government spending. So they are going to go after him—whether or not their members want their dues spent that way. This is a national problem. Union members pay 1–2 percent of their salaries in annual dues but have little say over how that …
Today, President Barack Obama will welcome Mexican President Felipe Calderon to the White House. As Senior Latin American Policy Analyst, Ray Walser, aptly described in his latest WebMemo, the atmosphere will be tense given the February 15 murder of U.S. immigration agent Jaime Zapata and recent Wikileaks revelations from the U.S. embassy in Mexico City questioning the coordination and effectiveness of Mexico’s security team dealing escalating violence and bloodshed because of narco-violence. And yet, there are so many critical issues at stake of mutual concern for both countries beyond the …
The Wall Street Journal reports today that the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission voted 5-2 yesterday to approve rules for accepting out-of-state nuclear materials. This is a huge victory for the nuclear energy industry which currently only has three other such storage sites in the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute Ralph Andersen tells the WSJ: “This is a major milestone. It’s going to provide much needed space.” The site will not store highly contaminated waste, such as spent fuel from power plants. Instead it will hold low-level waste like …
Texas Governor Rick Perry was at The Heritage Foundation on Monday to speak on his new book FED UP! Its message is bringing limited, constitutional governance back to Washington and the role that state governments should play in that restoration. In his speech, the Governor stressed that the election was a clear message to lawmakers in Washington to return to exercising their constitutionally defined powers and that the federal government needs to support the states, not work against them. One of the areas in which the Governor has demonstrated the …
