The State of Texas: May 5, 2016

Quote of the Day

“Just thankful I had a shirt this time…”

—Johnny Manziel to Twitter regarding his most recent mugshot, according to the Dallas Morning News. The tweet seems to have been deleted from his social media account. Manziel turned himself in on Wednesday following a Dallas County grand jury’s decision to indict Manziel on a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence.

Daily Roundup

RetrospecTed—We’ve had a full day to digest and diagnose Ted Cruz’s failed presidential campaign, and there are plenty of theories circulating as to what exactly went wrong (none of these theories involve the Zodiac Killer). The Dallas Morning News put forth the paradoxical case that Cruz’s strengths became his greatest weaknesses—his outsider status ultimately left him ally-less. “He made himself too hated,” one political analyst told the Morning News. CNN noted Cruz’s alliance with John Kasich backfired as he failed to sell himself to Kasich’s newly available voters, and also argued that the final, overarching nail in Cruz’s coffin was that “He never fulfilled his promise to unite the religious right with economic conservatives.” ABC wrote that Cruz’s early move to name Carly Fiorina as his running mate made him look “desperate.” Politico painted Cruz’s Iowa gaffe, when his campaign prematurely claimed Ben Carson dropped out, as the beginning of the end—that was also, of course, the beginning of the deadly “Lyin’ Ted” jabs from Donald Trump. And yet, way back when this election season had just begun, few figured Cruz had a realistic shot to make it this far. According to the Texas Tribune, “by most accounts, Cruz’s campaign was the best run” in the Republican field. But against the bulletproof Trump, the best just wasn’t enough.

Targeting Toilets—Attorney General Ken Paxton has strong opinions about who can use the bathroom in Target. According to FOX News, Paxton sent a letter warning Target that its recently announced transgender friendly restroom policy, which allows people to use whichever gender bathroom they identify with, may “lead to criminal and otherwise unwanted activity.” As the Austin American-Statesman notes, Paxton doesn’t really have the legal authority to direct other people to the public restroom of his own choice, but his letter adds fuel to the fire that a bathroom bill battle may soon be coming to Texas. “The Texas Legislature may at some point in the future address the issue,” Paxton wrote. This comes on the heels of similar statements from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick; coincidentally, news of Paxton’s letter broke on the same day that the U.S. Justice Department warned North Carolina that the state’s own bathroom bill violates the Civil Rights Act. If Texas eventually passes a similar bathroom bill, it should expect the same national pushback.

Racist Plot—A white woman was told by a Corpus Christi-area cemetery that her Hispanic husband’s remains can’t be buried there, prompting a civil rights advocacy group to file a federal lawsuit against the cemetery’s allegedly racist policy, according the Texas Tribune. The complaint alleges the cemetery’s director told the woman, who has a Hispanic last name, to “go up the road and bury him with the n—– and Mexicans” after the cemetery association voted to deny his burial in the “whites only” cemetery. The cemetery must have eventually realized just how stupid its policy was, because it reversed its decision and allowed the woman to bury her husband. Of course, the sudden moment of clarity seems a little late, considering this is 2016 and “whites only” cemeteries have been illegal since 1948. The Tribune says the woman hasn’t yet interned his ashes on the site. According to the Tribune, she is planning to file her own separate lawsuit and the Justice Department is preparing to get involved too.