As Reported in the North Texas Navigator.
Tuesday, March 15, at 1:00 P. M. Dan Neil’s legal team presents its case.
After you watch this brief video, you will realize why this case is vitally important to the future of our state.
The Master, Rep. Will Hartnett, has ruled that the words “shall” and “must” in the Texas Election Code are considered optional instead of mandates! Can you believe this? The words “shall” and “must” in federal law are considered mandates as are those same words contained in the voter I. D. bills that have gained broad support in this legislative session.
Much is at stake with Dan Neil’s presentation tomorrow because the decision could impact how other laws containing the words “shall” and “must” could be interpreted in the future.
Here is the brief video in which Texas Rep. Wayne Christian interviews Dan Neil. Please be ready to get mad when you hear the details about several of these votes. One of these was cast by a voter who was living with her daughter in another county where the voter had her clothes, her homestead, and her DOG. This vote was counted in favor of Donna Howard.
Dan Neil believes this vote and others like them are suspended registrations and should not count.
Remember that with the evidence that Dan Neil’s team has gathered, he should win the race by 1 vote!
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Wayne Christian's Legislative Update: March 14, 2011
Please contact your Texas House members IMMEDIATELY.
3.10.11 -- Update: Conservative Republican Dan Neil vs. Liberal-Left Rep. Donna Howard
Below is the summary of Dan Neil’s legal brief in his contested election against Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin). Dan Neil won the election to be the next Representative from District 48 by one vote! At least that is the conclusion that should be drawn from the Master’s report.
Rep. Will Hartnett (R-Dallas) was chosen as Master of Discovery; and it is to his report that Jos Nixon, Dan Neil’s legal counsel, is referring in the summary below.
On Tuesday, March 15 at 1:00 P. M., Dan Neil’s lead counsel will present his arguments to a special committee. (The public can watch the argument on the internet at www.house.state.tx.us.)
This special committee has been appointed by House Speaker Joe Straus and has been charged with settling the contested election. Committee members are Rep. Todd Hunter (Chair - R - Corpus Christi) and Republicans Dennis Bonnen, Lois Kolkhorst, Tryon Lewis, Jerry Madden, and Wayne Smith. The Democratsare Craig Eiland (Vice-Chair), Helen Giddings, and Ryan Guillen.
The special committee can either decide the case among themselves, reject the report, request more information from Rep. Hartnett, or call for another election.
The committee’s recommendation will then be presented to the full Texas House where a final decision will be made.
As is characteristic of liberal-left Rep. Donna Howard (rated 6% by Young Conservatives of Texas), she spoke in favor of abortion at the Planned Parenthood rally in Austin on March 8, 2011. Please see the information posted at the bottom of this e-mail that explains how trulyleftwing Howard really is. Our state would be much better served if Howard were to be ousted from the Texas House with Dan Neil taking her place.
As an aside, this close election should send a message to all voters in this state as to the significance of each person’s vote. It does matter on election day whether we each go to the polls. This close election should also arouse even more support for the passage of photo voter I. D. laws. -- Donna Garner
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by Texans for Dan Neil on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 5:38pm
The Master has incorrectly assumed that the provisions of Chapter 63 of the Election Code are optional. When the corrections are made to the election total votes for each candidate to properly apply the Election Code’s mandatory provisions, I won the election for House District 48 by one vote.
The five unregistered, out of district voters, all of whom testified they voted for Donna Howard, are:
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Mary Ann Rogers, who signed a Statement of Residence on Election Day listing her residence in Williamson County, yet voted in House District 48. In 2008, she purchased a home in Williamson County and declared it her homestead in 2009, receiving both homestead and over 65 property tax exemptions. She also changed her driver’s license in July 2010 to her Williamson County address.
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Harve Franks, who signed a Statement of Residence on Election Day listing her residence in Caldwell County, yet voted in House District 48. She testified that she does not own or rent a home in Travis County. While having her driver’s license and voter registration in Caldwell County, Ms Franks, a traveling musician, sometimes sleeps on friends’ couches in Austin.
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Taylor Acee, who moved out of House District 48 two years before the election and changed his residence three times in those two years. Mr. Acee did not fill out and sign a Statement of Residence, as required by law, listing his current residence at the time he voted.
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Mohamed Hanafi, who moved two and a half years before the election into another house district. Like Mr. Acee, Mr. Hanafi did not fill out and sign a Statement of Residence, as required by law, listing his current address at the time he voted.
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Lillie Hollingsworth, who moved in May, 2010 into House District 49. Like Mr. Acee and Mr. Hanafi, Ms. Hollingsworth did not fill out and sign a Statement of Residence, as required by law, listing her current address at the time she voted.
At each of the precincts where these people voted, the election judge mistakenly allowed them to vote. The Master’s report acknowledges the mistakes but incorrectly suggests that Statements of Residence are “directory,” meaning the legal requirements are optional and not mandatory. The Master’s belief is in direct conflict with the Code Construction Act in the Texas Government Code § 311.016, the Texas Election Code § 63.012, and the clear wording of the Texas Election Code § 63.0011. If we accept the Master’s ruling, Voter ID in Texas and other provisions can be considered optional rather than mandatory.
The Committee and the House should find that the provisions of Texas Election Code §§ 63.001 and 63.0011 are mandatory and remove the five illegally cast votes from the total for Donna Howard and declare that I am winner of the General Election for House District 48.
Additionally, Travis County election officials improperly allowed 32 other suspended registrants to vote in the House District 48 election without filling out and signing a required Statement of Residence, as well as illegally preventing 222 overseas voters from casting legal votes in the House District 48 election.
In short, either I won the General Election for House District 48 or a new election is required. As you will see, under no circumstance did Donna Howard receive the greater number of legal votes."
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Information about ultra-liberal Rep. Donna Howard
Rep. Donna Howard lost two elections when she ran for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) some years ago, and she obviously bears much ill will toward the conservative members of the SBOE.
First, we must understand that Rep. Donna Howard is a Texas Freedom Network board member. This puts her in direct alignment with Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign (largest homosexual organization in the U. S.), the ACLU Texas, Alliance for Clean Texas, Center for Public Policy Priorities, Equality Texas, NARAL Pro-Choice, Sierra Club, Stand Down Texas, TAPPA, Texas Impact, The Texas Observer, and MECha (who wants to eliminate the border with Mexico entirely and honor Mexican revolutionary war hero Ernesto Zapata and Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara).
TFN and Rep. Donna Howard support condom use instead of abstinence for teens, embryonic stem-cell research, and the gay and lesbian agenda.
TFN and its supporters were not able to prevail against the conservative SBOE members when they adopted the most fact-based, academic standards in the country in English / Language Arts / Reading , Science, andSocial Studies. Therefore, TFN decided to get State Rep. Donna Howard to do their dirty work through the legislative process.
In the 2009 Regular Session of the Texas Legislature, TFN/Howard filed 15 anti-SBOE bills. Thankfully, only one passed (the video streaming of the SBOE meetings).
Rep. Donna Howard co-authored HB 1323. This was captioned as an anti-bullying bill but was actually nothing more than an attempt by TFN in coordination with the homosexual lobby to force a thought-crimes bill upon our Texas school children.
HB 1323 contained the words "actual or perceived...gender identity or expression (transgender)" and "sexual orientation" making it clear that its real intent was to force students to accept homosexual behavior as being normal. Again, there were enough conservatives in the Texas Legislature that HB 1323 did not pass.
In the same 2009 Regular Session, Rep. Donna Howard was also joint author of HB 710 which was to place the SBOE under periodic review by the Sunset Advisory Commission. Had this bill passed, the SBOE would have been the only elected body in Texas to be subject to Sunset Review. The bill failed.
Rep. Donna Howard was the prime author of HJR 77 which was to take away the authority of the Permanent School Fund (PSF) from the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education.
As reported by the Austin American-Statesman on 4.27.09, “In a display of parliamentary high drama, the initial tally fell one vote short of the critical 100-vote threshold needed to allow the measure to skip another House vote and go straight to the Senate. But the ‘ayes’ grew to 104 after some members said the wrong position had been registered due to ‘machine malfunctions.’ ”
Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, was courageous enough to call the “machine malfunction” a ruse and said, “…the verification vote was called for the express purpose of finding another vote and that same tactic was used by the Democrats on both HJR 77 and HB 710.” Thankfully both bills were both eventually defeated.
Did Rep. Donna Howard have grounds to try to take the Permanent School Fund (PSF) away from the elected SBOE members?
As of March 12, 2010, here is how the PSF did under the able leadership of the SBOE, and this was during the time that the rest of the country was in an economic downturn:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=8217
The Texas Permanent School Fund, which guarantees school district bonds and supports the purchase of student textbooks, realized a 25.02 percent return in 2009.
The fund, the largest public endowment for public schools in the nation, was valued at $22.2 billion on Dec. 31, 2009, up from $18.1 billion on Dec. 31, 2008.
The PSF’s return was in the top 10 percent of public funds greater than $1 billion and in the top 10 percent of endowments greater than $1 billion last year. It was also in the top third of public funds and endowments for the two-year period ending Dec. 31, 2009.
Another ploy by Rep. Donna Howard and her Democrat cronies was to try to get HB 420 passed. HB 420 was to strip a State Board of Education member's ability to run as a Democrat or as a Republican; they would have to run as "independent" candidates. This would mean that voters would not know whether a candidate for the SBOE is a Republican or a Democrat.
