Perry Appoints Scott, Who Held Interim Spot, as Education Commissioner -- TxAFLCIOENews

1--Robert Scott Named Education Commissioner

2--Houston Chronicle Calls for Removal of Criminal Appeals Judge

3--Columnist: Noose at CPS Energy Should Have Been Seen as 'Offensive'

 

1) Gov. Rick Perry today named interim Education Commissioner Robert Scott 

to the post on a full basis.

 

The reaction from several corners seems to suggest a consensus that Scott is 

a skilled professional who beats the other likely alternatives. Barring a 

special legislative session, Scott would not have to undergo the Senate 

confirmation process until 2009.

 

Texas AFT President Linda Bridges issued this statement:

 

"We look forward to working with Mr. Scott. We hope that he will be 

receptive to hearing from teachers and other public education employees, 

since these are the people who are in the trenches each day dealing with the 

challenges facing public education."

 

"The commissioner of education obviously plays an important role in our 

public education system, and we'll be sure to keep the lines of 

communication open with Mr. Scott so that educators have a voice in shaping 

policy decisions."

 

2) The Houston Chronicle today called for the removal of the presiding judge 

of the Court of Criminal Appeals over her personal blocking of a death-row 

appeal. This is a step in the right direction, but I'd take it a modest step 

further and abolish the whole court, merging it with the Texas Supreme 

Court, a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate Texas, to have one ultimate 

appeals court like almost every other state. The campaign slogan: "The same 

injustice for half the price":

 

Oct. 15, 2007, 7:09PM

Locking justice's door

 

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals chief justice's unethical, outrageous 

blocking of a death row appeal merits the most severe legal sanctions.

 

The events of Sept. 25 have put a stain on Texas justice that can only be 

cleansed by the removal of Chief Justice Sharon Keller from the Texas Court 

of Criminal Appeals.

 

On that day, Judge Keller let her personal bias in favor of the death 

penalty trample the right of now-executed prisoner Michael Richard to access 

the courts and have due process. In doing so, she abdicated her role as the 

state's chief criminal justice to become its chief executioner.

 

As laid out in a complaint to Texas' State Commission on Judicial Conduct 

signed by 20 distinguished Texas attorneys, including Houston's Dick 

DeGuerin and University of Houston Law Center professor Michael Olivas, 

Judge Keller's actions were legally inexcusable. The plot line could be 

straight from a Law and Order episode, with the twist that in this case it 

was the justice who committed the injustice.

 

After the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a challenge to the 

constitutionality of lethal injection, attorneys for Richard, a convicted 

murderer, had less than a day to craft an appeal for a stay of execution 

pending resolution of the issue before the high court. A ruling by the Texas 

court was necessary before the U.S. Supreme Court could consider his appeal.

 

Because of computer problems, Richard's lawyers requested that the Court of 

Criminal Appeals remain open past 5 p.m. to take the last-minute appeal. The 

judge assigned to the case, Cheryl Johnson, and two other judges had stayed 

late, anticipating that an appeal might be forthcoming before the execution 

scheduled later that evening. Without informing them of her decision, Judge 

Keller refused to allow the appeal to be filed after 5 p.m. Richard was 

executed hours later.

 

Even Keller's court colleagues expressed dismay at her actions. Justice 

Johnson was quoted in the complaint as angry, because "if I'm in charge of 

the execution, I ought to have known about these things, and I ought to have 

been asked whether I was willing to stay late and accept those filings." She 

indicated she would have accepted the brief, "because this is a death case." 

Justice Paul Womack told the Chronicle he waited in his office till 7 p.m. 

because "it was reasonable to expect an effort would be made in some haste 

in light of the Supreme Court. I wanted to be sure to be available in case 

it was raised."

 

Justice Keller's response to the uproar was that the lawyers should have 

filed the appeal on time. After all, she said, "they had all day." When an 

irreversible action like an execution is only hours away from occurring, 

Keller's adherence to a 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. justice schedule is mind boggling. 

Civil judges are available at all hours to sign temporary restraining orders 

as are criminal judges to approve search warrants. Yet in the taking of a 

life, the most profound action a judge will ever be involved in, Keller 

wants to stick to banker's hours.

 

The irresponsibility of Keller's behavior was highlighted by subsequent 

legal developments. Two days after the Richard execution, the Supreme Court 

stayed the execution of another Texas prisoner, Carlton Turner. Although his 

appeal had been denied by the Texas court, the fact that it was heard 

allowed the high court to act.

 

Then the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the scheduled execution of 

convicted murderer Heliberto Chi, effectively signaling a halt to death by 

injection in the state until the high court rules on its constitutionality.

 

Just as Turner and Chi were spared pending the resolution of the issue, so 

Michael Richard should be alive today. Since she will not face the voters 

until 2012, the miscarriage of justice perpetrated by Chief Justice Keller 

can only be remedied by a recommendation by the Judicial Conduct Commission 

to the Texas Supreme Court that she be removed from office.

 

3) San Antonio Express-News columnist Carlos Guerra offers some wise 

perspective on the flareup between the IBEW and CPS Energy in San Antonio:

 

Carlos Guerra: Didn't utility realize some workers could find this symbol 

offensive?

Web Posted: 10/16/2007 01:32 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

 

This columnist usually avoids disputes about symbols, believing that such 

debates are best left to the symbol-minded.

 

There are times, however, when they cannot be avoided.

 

Monday morning, as VIA buses roared past CPS Energy's downtown offices, 

reporters strained to hear spokesmen for the International Brotherhood of 

Electrical Workers and several civil rights organizations express their 

heartfelt outrage.

 

Last week, a CPS worker showed an IBEW organizer a picture of a manager's 

office where a hangman's noose was hanging on the wall. And nearby was what 

appeared to be another potent symbol straight out of the segregationist 

South's hate-filled past.

 

"This is a public agency," said IBEW attorney David Van Os. "For management 

to display the cruelest and most barbaric symbolism of our history - a 

hangman's noose - is to terrorize people. It's the worst fear ever suffered 

by the people of this country, the fear of lynching.

 

"It is absolutely intolerable, and it has got to stop now."

 

And there is more, said IBEW International representative Ralph 

Merriweather, who is black and who was earlier barred from entering the CPS 

building to talk to top managers about workers' complaints.

 

"Back in the Ku Klux Klan times, they said it took 12 loops on a hangman's 

noose to break a black man's neck," he said, pointing to the noose.

 

"And they spread the Bibles, separation," he continued, pointing to two 

books also in the photo - one white one, another dark-colored, with a space 

visible between them.

 

My days in the South during the nastier times of the civil rights struggles 

awakened recollections of this symbol: Water fountains and public facilities 

weren't the only things racially segregated.

 

In the Jim Crow South, some courts kept two Bibles for swearing witnesses 

in, one for blacks and another for whites.

 

"When I see something like this," Merriweather shuddered, "it brings fear to 

my heart."

 

As the speakers took turns condemning the agency's tolerance of racist 

symbols, a CPS worker passed out a statement from Paula Gold-Williams, CPS 

vice president, branding IBEW's allegations "totally false."

 

"The so-called 'hangman's noose' in a manager's office was given to him 

approximately 10 years ago at a boss's day celebration (where) employees 

gave him gag gifts, (including) neckties made of wood and one made out of 

rope," the statement said. "He retained a few."

 

Later, Gold-Williams - herself an African American - posited that the whole 

brouhaha was being blown out of proportion.

 

"It (the noose) went up very benignly at the time," she said. "Whether it 

was right or wrong, it didn't raise any issues. To my knowledge, there have 

never been any complaints about it until recently."

 

As for the separated Bibles, she said, one is actually a dictionary, which 

she brought along.

 

Van Os had another take.

 

"Minorities have been harassed, demoted from their positions, threatened 

that their jobs were in jeopardy," he said. "And you may remember that last 

spring, CPS workers rallied at City Hall to protest problems of retaliation 

and discrimination.

 

"The very employee who took the photograph of the hangman's noose is not 

here, and his name and face cannot be exposed because he is so scared."

Gold-Williams responded that such symbols are important to her and her 

family, but insisted that no malice was intended.

 

"When (the noose) was brought to our attention - I personally hadn't seen 

it - we addressed it right away" by having it removed, she said.

 

CPS managers are undergoing sensitivity training in discrimination and 

ethics issues, she added, and such displays will be verboten. "But yes, (the 

noose) has been up for 10 years."

 

Excuse me: But over 10 years, didn't it occur to anyone at CPS that some 

workers might find it intimidating and offensive?

 

If that's the case, CPS needs more than sensitivity training. It needs a 

good housecleaning.

 

To contact Carlos Guerra, call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail 

cguerra@express-news.net. His column appears on Tuesdays, Thursdays and 

Saturdays.

 

 

 

Ed Sills

Director of Communications, Texas AFL-CIO

opeiu298/afl-cio