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NESSCA: A Meditative Process from Dis-Ease to At-Onement
Get PDFIn the beginning was the verb. I asked a coworker whose native language is Spanish how is John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word…” translated in the Santa Biblia. The Greek word logos translates to “word,” and many of us are familiar with the squeezing of the logos into English. Is it “word” the way that we use word-units to speak, write, communicate? This would be palabra in Spanish. Is it word as “reason,” logos as logic, as an ability to think through and make sense of and bring order to the seemingly chaotic existence we behold? This would be razon. I asked, “Is it palabra, the Spanish word for word? That doesn’t make much sense.” He thought for a second and said, “En el principio era El Verbo.” In the beginning was the verb
Rulemaking Behind Closed Doors: Governor Abbott’s Secret Rulemaking. Worse Yet, All State Agencies Are Colluding with the Governor
Get PDFIn 2019, the Texas Legislature granted the Governor new powers to review the rulemaking process for certain state agencies. Since then, the Governor has apparently extended this authority of review over the rulemaking process to more agencies than he was authorized to. Some journalists and scholars, including this Author, have attempted to access the proposals and comments submitted to the rulemaking process by the Governor’s Office—and yet the records are withheld by the Texas Attorney General under claimed exceptions to the Texas Public Information Act. Despite the Attorney General’s claims, this Author and others maintain that any records of these submissions to agencies’ rulemaking processes by the Governor should be publicly available as a matter of law. This Article lays out the recent history of the Governor’s “Secret Rulemaking Division,” and ultimately explains why, under the Texas Administrative Procedure Act, any and all comments, suggestions, or changes made by the Governor to state agencies’ rulemaking processes must be released as public information
If You Cannot Afford an Attorney, None Will Be Appointed for You: Exploring Rates Of Representation by Counsel in Texas Misdemeanor Courts
Get PDFAll misdemeanor defendants in the United States have the right to be represented by a lawyer if they are facing the possibility of incarceration. Yet implementation of that right is often left to local policymakers, and rates of non-representation (defendants proceeding without lawyers) vary enormously. Through an examination of data from Texas counties in 2019, we find non-representation rates were highest in the state’s poorest and most rural counties. But we also find signs that local policy choices matter. Counties with public defender offices, and those with less restrictive policies on financial eligibility for indigent defense services, appointed lawyers to substantially more misdemeanor defendants, and had substantially lower non-representation rates as a result. State officials should encourage policy choices that can effectively uphold defendants’ constitutional rights and create more equitable access to counsel, no matter where a defendant happens to be prosecuted.https://scholar.smu.edu/deasoncenter/1017/thumbnail.jp