If you read special prosecutors’ report about last year’s raid on the Marion County Record newspaper, the abuse of power by law enforcement sounds like an immaculate deception. Officials who carted off computers and cellphones from the Record on a flimsy pretext didn’t do so out of ill will, according to Marc Bennett and Barry Wilkerson. The fact that a Marion County Record reporter had investigated Police Chief Gideon Cody? The fact that 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer died the day after the raid? Both dismissed as immaterial.
The damage done to journalism and journalists across the United States? Simply not the their problem. With lawsuits about the raid thick on the ground, Bennett and Wilkerson aren’t commenting further. It’s a shame, given all the loose ends and unanswered questions.
The dynamic duo did two things right . First, they lay out in exhaustive detail why Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer and reporter Phyllis Zorn committed no crimes in their everyday work of pursuing a story about restaurateur Kari Newell. But we all already knew that.
Reporting on the circumstances around the raid had been clear for ages. Second, they recommend the filing of a low-level felony charge against Cody. Unfortunately, the charge had nothing to do with the raid’s conception or execution.
It instead focuses on his request to Newell that she delete text messages between the two of them. The special prosecutors note in the 124-page report that they are not reviewing whether federal laws were broken, or whether officials might be found guilty in a civil case. “We understand that state criminal charges might not be possible against some of them,” Meyer said yesterday.
“That’s why federal civil suits will continue, why there should be public outrage over some officials’ failure to perform the most fundamental responsibilities of their positions, and why state laws allowing them to escape responsibility may need to be changed.” Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy director Seth Stern went even further. “Americans across the country and the political spectrum were outraged by what Record co-owner Joan Meyer called ‘Hitler tactics,’ ” Stern said.
He added: “While we welcome the news that the former police chief who orchestrated the raid, Gideon Cody, will be criminally charged, he should’ve been charged with more than after-the-fact obstruction — the raid itself was criminal. And Cody is far from the only one at fault here. We hope he and everyone else behind the raid will also be held accountable, through the criminal courts, civil courts, and courts of public opinion.
They should never work in law enforcement or government again.” Beyond these top-line findings, the report raises a number of uncomfortable questions. All of those who might have put a stop to Cody’s quest to raid the newspaper offered explanations as to why they simply can’t be blamed.
That includes Kansas Bureau of Investigation special agent in charge Bethanie Popejoy, County Attorney Joel Ensey and Magistrate Judge Laura Viar . Their reasons appear simple and logical in isolation. But when combined, you can’t help but wonder if Cody has been left out to dry by local and state officials, eager to wash their hands of an investigation that spiraled out of control.
For example, Popejoy told investigators that Cody was “a rabid squirrel in a cage and just off doing his own thing.” Yet she sent him a text message, quoted in the report, that reads: “I know you fell like you’re out on a limb, but there are amazing minds working behind the scenes to help you and support you. We’re here with you, so hang in there with us.
” Former Marion mayor David Mayfield was interviewed for the report, and his name crops up incidentally a handful of times. But according to a lawsuit filed by the newspaper against local officials in April, Mayfield ordered the raid and called journalists “the real villains in America.” Did investigators from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, who took on the case from the KBI, focus too closely on a small cast of characters? Speaking of the KBI, Director Tony Mattivi has some explaining of his own to do.
Two days after the raid , he said that “in order to investigate and gather facts, the KBI commonly executes search warrants on police departments, sheriff’s offices, and at city, county and state offices. We have investigated those who work at schools, churches and at all levels of public service. No one is above the law, whether a public official or a representative of the media.
” Given that his agency now disavows any knowledge of or involvement in the Marion raid, I wonder if the director wishes he had said that differently. I also wonder who advised him on the situation at the newspaper and about the wisdom of making such a statement. I asked KBI spokeswoman Melissa Underwood, who forwarded a statement that raises more questions.
It reads in part: “Even though agents did not play a role in executing the search warrants, on Sept. 19, 2023, agents attended additional training presented by the Kansas County and District Attorney Association regarding the protections and special legal considerations afforded to the press, clergy, appointed counsel, and mental health professionals.” Good to know that while apparently no one at the KBI made any mistakes, they received additional training to ensure they continued not making any mistakes.
Kansas Bureau of Investigation director Tony Mattivi, center, said shortly after the Marion County Record raid that “no one is above the law, whether a public official or a representative of the media.” (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector) Finally, we come to the phone call. Reading the report, the special prosecutors transcribe a phone call between Officer Zach Hudlin (now the Marion police chief ) and a Kansas Department of Revenue representative.
Officials would use that call as justification for much that followed. Yet media lawyer Max Kautsch told me that call shows how poorly local officials handled the case. “The report reveals countless instances of law enforcement’s mistakes, including, crucially, Officer Hudlin ‘reach(ing) what appears to have been an honest but mistaken conclusion that journalist Phyllis Zorn had falsified her name and motives to gain access to the KDOR records,’ ” Kautsch said, quoting from the report.
“But that conclusion doesn’t hold water upon even a cursory review of the transcript of the phone call between KDOR and Hudlin, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that, at most, the KDOR was concerned about how to regulate access to its website in the future. There is literally nothing in the transcript to suggest that KDOR had told Hudlin that Zorn or anyone else had committed a crime by accessing the KDOR’s website.” “Honest but mistaken.
” That’s the key to the sleight of hand performed repeatedly by Bennett and Wilkerson. Sure, officials may have violated the U.S.
Constitution and individual rights. They may have run roughshod over due process and state law . But they thought they were doing the right thing, which excuses them.
Shockingly, the special prosecutors write: “It is not a crime under Kansas law for a law enforcement officer to conduct a poor investigation and reach erroneous conclusions.” So what is it, then? Here are the facts. Law-enforcement officials brazenly abused their power in Marion.
They did so on based on tissue-thin speculation, costing Joan Meyer’s life along the way. They sent a chilling message to journalist across the United States. Even today, the town’s journalists and residents struggle to put the pieces back together.
The special prosecutors cleared the lowest possible bar in their conclusions that no one at the Record broke the law in doing the basic work of journalism. But they did not serve the cause of justice. Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor.
Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here . Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: [email protected] .
Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X . Every four years, it seems Republicans claim that the Democratic Party presidential or vice presidential nominee is “the most liberal senator” ( just as they did for Barack Obama ). This year is no different.
Many conservatives , including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have argued that Kamala Harris was the nation’s most liberal senator during her four years (2017 to 2021) representing California. “Kamala Harris is a dangerous liberal.
She makes Joe Biden look competent and moderate by contrast,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recently declared . ALSO READ: Don’t be fooled: Project 2025 is already happening “Kamala Harris will appoint hundreds of extreme far left judges to forcibly impose crazy San Francisco liberal values on Americans nationwide,” Donald Trump himself told a crowd of supporters last month.
To test this argument, I analyzed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)’s congressional ratings database, which in part uses American Conservative Union (ACU) system of ideological voting rates in Congress . (And yes, this is the same CPAC that conducts the annual convention near Washington, D.C.
, so beloved by Donald Trump’s MAGA acolytes.) This is a database that I have used in my political science classes, as well as in academic publications that evaluate congressional voting records. This research focuses on Sen.
Kamala Harris’ last year in office: 2020. This gives her most recent voting score and her lifetime voting score, based on how she voted on a variety of bills before the Senate. In 2020, Harris’ CPAC score was 9 out of 100, with 100 being the most conservative one could be and zero being as utterly lefty liberal as possible.
ALSO READ: We asked 10 Republican senators: ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ Things got weird fast . CPAC ranks almost all Democrats as more liberal than their Republican counterparts — no surprise there. But: Harris getting a score of nine tied her with Democrats such as Sen.
Jon Tester of Montana — hardly a far-left icon — and then-Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party shortly after her failed run for president in 2020, is now a favorite among some conservatives.
I also tested Harris’ score against all of her fellow Democrats to see if, indeed, she is “the most liberal” during her final year as a senator. Of all the House of Representatives members and U.S.
senators who were Democrats in 2020, Harris fell on the more conservative end of the spectrum — relatively speaking. CPAC data reveal that the average score for Democrats in the Senate during 2020 was 7 out of 100. For the House, the average was 4 of 100.
This means that Harris’ voting habits were more in line with the most conservative Democrats than, say, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) or Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA).
When I analyzed Harris’ overall voting record from 2017 to 2020, she finished with a four percent conservative score, according to CPAC. Even by that measure, Harris is far from the most liberal member of the Senate, or Congress as a whole, during that period. I found at least 26 members of the House and Senate with a voting record below 4 of 100, and 19 members of Congress with voting scores also with at least a 4 of 100.
There may be more — full disclosure: this is a lot of data to wade through — and it doesn’t cover anyone who left office between 2017 and 2019. So no, Kamala Harris was not the most liberal senator during her time in the Senate, according to one of the most conservative, Trump-loving organizations among conservative, Trump-loving organizations. Let’s look at one vote Harris took on one of her final days in the Senate before becoming vice president.
The vote — taken on January 1, 2021 — was for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. It reads: “To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2021 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.” Harris voted for it.
Does that make Harris a conservative for being pro-military, or an anti-conservative for voting for a lot of fiscal spending? Regardless of CPAC scores, if Harris had voted against it, would she be praised for fiscal restraint? Or would she be criticized for being anti-military? You be the judge. John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga.
His views are his own. He can be reached at [email protected] .
His “X” account is JohnTures2. CONTINUE READING Show less " Here are the Democrats seeking to replace U.S.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee " was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Sign up for The Brief , The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
WASHINGTON — The person who is likely to take U.S. Rep.
Sheila Jackson Lee’s seat in Congress will effectively be selected by 88 Harris County Democratic precinct chairs next week. Jackson Lee died July 19 after having won in this year’s Democratic primary. An executive committee of precinct chairs in the 18th Congressional District will select a new candidate who will appear on the November 5 ballot against Republican Lana Centonze.
But because the district is solidly blue, it is likely that the Democratic candidate will win. Since the candidate selection is internal within the party, there is no formal filing process for candidates and precinct chairs could theoretically choose anyone. Of the 15 Democrats who have been in touch with the county party, five run with extensive elected experience: former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards — who faced off against Jackson Lee in the primary, state Rep.
Jarvis Johnson, state Rep. Christina Morales and Houston City Council member Letitia Plummer. Former Houston City Council Member Dwight Boykins, who put his name in the ring on Friday, said Monday that he dropped out of the race after Jackson Lee’s family endorsed Turner.
The election is separate from the special election on the same day for a representative to serve out the rest of Jackson Lee’s current term, which ends on Jan. 3, 2025. Candidates have until Aug.
22 to run in the special election. The leading Democrats seeking the party’s nomination have resumes steeped in Houston politics and largely aligned on policy. Each will be able to share their pitches during a public forum on Saturday.
The precinct chairs will meet to select the Democratic nominee to replace Jackson Lee on Aug. 13. Sylvester Turner The most experienced candidate, Turner served as mayor of Houston from 2016 to 2024 after serving in the Texas House since 1989.
But perhaps his biggest asset is his strong relationship with Jackson Lee, reflected in the endorsement of Jackson Lee’s children, Jason Lee and Erica Lee Carter. “We have no doubt Mayor Turner will carry on our mother’s legacy of service because we’ve witnessed it almost our entire lives,” Jackson Lee’s children said in a statement Monday. “Our mother had no greater partner than Mayor Turner and he honors her with his willingness to dutifully and humbly serve as a sturdy bridge to the next generation of leadership for the historic 18th Congressional District of Texas.
” Turner endorsed Jackson Lee in her own run for mayor last year. Turner, who was term-limited out of office, had largely refrained from commenting on his succession until Jackson Lee entered a runoff against state Sen. John Whitmire.
Whitmire ended up winning the race. In his bid to succeed Jackson Lee, Turner is highlighting his relationship with her, promising to continue fighting for some of her biggest priorities, including securing federal funds for Houston. Jackson Lee brought in millions of federal dollars throughout her time in Congress for Houston flood control, health care and public safety.
Turner also supports legislation to protect women from domestic violence, codify access to abortion federally, protect LGBTQ rights and enhance transparency in policing. But Turner, who opted not to challenge his old friend in the Democratic primary, is also the oldest major candidate at 69 years old and said he would serve a maximum of two terms if elected — a fact others seeking the nomination said would limit his ability to build seniority in the hierarchical Congress. “It is time for people like Sylvester Turner to pass the baton and counsel the next generation of leaders to be able to to lead this district forward,” said Johnson, who succeeded Turner’s state House.
“Turner is a very capable, a very smart individual, and when healthy and when his timing was right, did great things. But I don't think that it's fair to this district, I don't think that it is fair to this community that we place, potentially, us back in the same position that we just came from.” Turner said in 2022 that he had secretly been recovering from bone cancer, and is now cancer-free.
Amanda Edwards Edwards is making another go at the congressional seat after losing to Jackson Lee in the Democratic primary earlier this year. She dropped out of last year’s mayoral run and ran for the congressional seat after Jackson Lee announced she was running for mayor, seeming to vacate the seat. But when Jackson Lee lost the mayoral election, the two Democrats faced off in the primary, with Jackson Lee winning by over 22 points.
Edwards isn’t discouraged by that run, recognizing the seniority Jackson Lee offered. But she says this is an opportunity for new leadership who can build another generation of seniority in the House. Edwards, 42, is only a couple of years younger than Jackson Lee was when she was elected to Congress.
Edwards was a member of Houston City Council from 2016 to 2020 as an at-large member, where she had a constituency of over 2 million. While on the council, Edwards created the city’s Women and Minority-owned Business Task Force and prioritized making a fair playing field for the city’s small businesses. Protecting small business owners while also strengthening workers’ rights to unionize remains a priority for her in Congress.
Edwards also supports codifying federal abortion rights, expanding coverage under the Affordable Care Act and reforming police under the Justice in Policing Act. Other Houston-specific issues Edwards is focused on include bringing federal funds into the district for flood resiliency and environmental justice causes, such as the Fifth Ward cancer cluster. Both were priorities for Jackson Lee in Congress.
Edwards is a Harris County native, graduating from Eisenhower High School and working for Jackson Lee in her Washington office after graduating from Emory University in 2004. “I’m the person in this race who's also been trained by the congresswoman and knows the ins and outs of the 18th congressional district DC office,” Edwards said. Edwards ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen.
John Cornyn in 2020. She came in fifth place, with M.J.
Hegar winning the nomination. Cornyn won the general election. Jarvis Johnson Johnson represented parts of the 18th Congressional District in the Texas state House, where he served on the Appropriations Committee and as vice chair of the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee.
Both committee assignments align with Jackson Lee’s time in Congress, where she sat on the House Homeland Security and was an avid advocate for appropriating funds to Houston. Johnson gave up his seat in the Texas House to run for Whitmire’s vacated seat in the state Senate. He lost that race to Democrat Molly Cook.
Johnson said he would prioritize gathering all elected officials in the district — from state legislators to city council and school board members — to prioritize which local issues should get federal funding. It’s a coordination that he said hasn’t existed under past congressional representation. The top policy priorities for him are housing, education and health care in the city, which he said he would address by bringing home federal dollars.
Johnson also said that his time in the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority for over 20 years, prepares him to work across the aisle in Congress. As a state appropriator, he brought $1 million to his state House district for the Booker T. Washington High School for engineering and fought for state funds to go toward constructing the Ike Dike.
One of his biggest priorities in the immediate term is ramping support for Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for the White House. Johnson said that means outreach for young voters and Black men who feel disenfranchised by an older generation of Democrats. “It is important at this time that we pass the baton,” Johnson said.
“What I don't believe that the Democratic Party here, locally and nationally, has done, is speak to that populace of people that need to see themselves in the picture.” Letitia Plummer Plummer now occupies the at-large city council seat previously held by Edwards. The position is bound by resign-to-run laws, meaning she would give up her seat if given the Democratic nomination to run in the general election.
She can’t formally call herself a candidate before then, so she won’t be participating in Saturday’s candidate forum. In a recent interview, Plummer, 53, said her relative youth was one of her biggest assets, allowing her to occupy the seat for years and offering consistency as Jackson Lee had done. “I have a record of the work that I've done in the community.
I've got the experience, and I have the age to allow some level of creation of seniority when I get to Congres,” Plummer said. Plummer said she would continue focusing on transportation, affordable housing, public health, small businesses and flood resiliency in Congress. She cited her work with the Department of Transportation to secure funding for the city’s Metro’s University Line and her work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency to bring federal resources to high-pollution areas.
Plummer said she has a roster of “shovel-ready projects” in need of federal funding that she would fight for in Congress. Plummer first ran for Congress in 2018, losing in the Democratic primary for the 22nd Congressional District to Sri Preston Kulkarni (Kulkarni lost in the competitive general election to former U.S.
Rep. Peter Olson). Christina Morales Morales has served in the state Legislature since 2019 after winning in a special election against fellow Democrat Melissa Noriega.
She and Noriega had made it to a runoff in an eight-way contest for the seat. In the Legislature, “I’m known as a fighter,” Morales said in a video announcing her bid for the nomination. “Since taking office in 2019, I have not backed down from Gov.
Abbott and the Republicans. They’re taking away our basic rights,” Morales said in the video. Morales said she would prioritize protecting voting rights and fighting the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District .
As a member of the state House, Morales partook in the 2021 Democratic walkout of the state House to break the quorum needed to pass Republican-led voting legislation. She also organized state leaders and community organizations in an ad hoc hearing of Houston ISD parents to speak out about the state takeover, which she called “ground zero” of Republicans’ social policy agenda. Morales, who is Latina, will be running in a district that has a long history of Black representation in Congress, including Reps.
Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland and Craig Washington. Aside from serving in the state House, Morales runs her family’s funeral home in Houston’s East End. CONTINUE READING Show less Donald Trump’s ‘neo-birtherism” strategy of attack against Kamala Harris is a return to a tactic that has actually never been tested in an election, a New York Times columnist pointed out Tuesday.
Jamelle Bouie wrote that Trump has adopted similar attacks against his Democratic opponent that he tried against Barack Obama, using race and the base instincts of a section of the American right to attack his opponent as a foreign interloper. But, wrote Bouie , Trump never actually ran against Obama. And, while baselessly questioning if Obama was born in the U.
S. and eligible to be president helped him build create his own fan base, it’s an election tactic that has yet to be tested. “For years, before he won the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Donald Trump was something like the spiritual leader of the Republican Party’s right-wing base,” write Bouie.
“He earned his place in the hearts and minds of conservative voters by doing what most Republican politicians at the time refused to do: He attacked Barack Obama as a foreign interloper and openly questioned his right to serve as president of the United States.” The strategy, the columnist wrote, put Trump in a position to win his party’s presidential election four years later, but he went on to run against Hillary Clinton. And, four years after that, he took on Joe Biden.
“Birtherism sits at the foundation of Trump’s political career. It is the energy that fueled his ascent to the highest peak of American politics. And as he tries to scale that peak for a third time — and for the first time against a nonwhite opponent — he has returned to birtherism as he makes his case to the public,” he wrote.
This time, his reliance on race is directed right at his opponent, with some variation . Instead of claiming she wasn’t born in America, he’s questioned if Harris is really African American. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black,” he said at a convention of Black journalists last week.
ALSO READ: Don’t be fooled: Project 2025 is already happening “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black ?” It’s a repeat of Birtherism in that it attacks race, and it is provably false, Bouie wrote. “The point is that there is no real dispute or even question about Harris’s background. As with its original iteration, the goal of this neo-birtherism is to cast doubts about Harris’s integrity.
It is to say that she is inauthentic — that she can’t be trusted,” he wrote. But, he said, he’s attempting to use a tactic to win an election which he has actually never used before — and it could backfire. “For as much as Trump defined himself against Obama, he also never ran against Obama,” Bouie wrote.
“ You could even describe Trump’s birtherism as a fantasy of what he would have said to the former president had he been his opponent. If Trump’s attacks on Harris’s identity are part of a strategy, in other words, it’s not one that ever won an election.” CONTINUE READING Show less.
