{"id":12103,"date":"2017-04-12T18:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T01:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12103"},"modified":"2017-04-12T18:05:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T01:05:57","slug":"repubs-barely-squeak-by-in-ks-federal-court-again-finds-tx-intentionally-discriminated-bradcast-4122017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12103","title":{"rendered":"Repubs (Barely) Squeak By in KS; Federal Court (Again) Finds TX Intentionally Discriminated: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 4\/12\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_VotingBooths_041217.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">With special elections for the U.S. House under way (yesterday in Kansas, next week in Georgia, for a start), new voting restrictions being put in place by Republicans in Iowa, and a federal court slapping down Texas Republican&#8217;s voting laws as racially discriminatory yet again, it looks like we&#8217;re fully back on the democracy beat for today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>First up, Republicans <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/elections\/results\/kansas-house-special-election-district-4\">reportedly<\/a> won Tuesday&#8217;s special election for a vacant U.S. House seat in deep &#8220;red&#8221; Kansas, but it wasn&#8217;t easy for them. The progressive Democratic candidate James Thompson was able to secure a 20+ point swing against the Republican Ron Estes in KS-04 from Donald Trump&#8217;s landslide victory in the district just months ago. But should national Democrats have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/coulda-woulda-shouda-democrats-miss-a-huge-opportunity-in-kansas\/\">done more<\/a> to support their candidate in what had previously been regarded as an unwinnable seat for Dems? And can the results fairly be seen an encouraging bellwether for next week&#8217;s special election for the U.S. House in Georgia, in another Republican (if less so) district?<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, the GOP continues their efforts to keep Democratic-leaning voters from being able to vote at all. In Iowa, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/iowa-voter-id-fraud_us_58e909e1e4b05413bfe365dd\">internal emails<\/a> from his own deputy reveal, the GOP Sec. of State recently cited misleading &#8220;voter fraud&#8221; evidence in support of new voting restrictions. And Republicans in the state legislature eye spending some $650,000 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2017\/04\/11\/iowa-budget-includes-funding-voter-id-initiative-cuts-other-programs\/100346066\/\">in support<\/a> of it, while planning cuts to social programs, like those meant to protect Buckeye State kids.<\/p>\n<p>But, in Texas, a federal court <a href=\"http:\/\/electionlawblog.org\/?p=92040\">this week<\/a>, for a second time, has found the state&#8217;s Photo ID voting restriction to have been <i>purposely<\/i> discriminatory against racial minorities. Will Texas finally be forced to kill their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/a-big-win-for-voting-rights-in-texas-and-a-big-loss-for-trump\/\">racial discriminatory<\/a> voting law entirely? And, of more note, now that <i>intentional<\/i> discrimination by the state Republicans has been found yet again, will the federal courts force Texas to obtain federal approval for any new voting laws, as per Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act?<\/p>\n<p>Attorney <b>Ernest A. Canning<\/b>, who has been covering the Texas case, and others related, for years <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?author=107\">at The BRAD BLOG<\/a>, joins us to explain this week&#8217;s &#8220;huge&#8221; ruling from the U.S. District Court concerning what he describes as the state&#8217;s &#8220;zombie voter suppression bill&#8221; that never dies, no matter how many times it&#8217;s struck down as unlawful by federal courts and the DoJ. Also, what does this latest ruling portend for the future of this law and others like it, at both the federal Court of Appeals and the (now stolen) U.S. Supreme Court? We discuss.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/GreenNews.BradBlog.com\"><i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> with some more disturbing news about Trump&#8217;s EPA, but some very encouraging news on California&#8217;s historic drought&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_KSSpecialElectionResults_ErnieCanning_IowaTexasPhotoID_041217.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><br \/>\n[audio:http:\/\/bradblog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_KSSpecialElectionResults_ErnieCanning_IowaTexasPhotoID_041217.mp3]<\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/stitcher.com\/s\/player.php?fid=25838&#038;src=psl\">Stitcher<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With special elections for the U.S. House under way (yesterday in Kansas, next week in Georgia, for a start), new voting restrictions being put in place by Republicans in Iowa, and a federal court slapping down Texas Republican&#8217;s voting laws as racially discriminatory yet again, it looks like we&#8217;re fully back on the democracy beat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,89,675,21,299,123,479,594,954,930,28,451,72,74,171,477,958,157,172,771,300,47,198,313,517],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-california","category-democrats","category-dnc","category-donald-trump","category-election-2016","category-election-2017","category-election-2018","category-election-reform","category-epa","category-georgia","category-iowa","category-kansas","category-kpfk","category-mike-pompeo","category-north-korea","category-photo-id-laws","category-race","category-republicans","category-texas","category-us-house","category-us-supreme-court","category-voting-rights-act","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12103"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}