Larry Taylor of Dallas, Texas, sends this grab from his local TV news. It shows WFAA asking viewers if they would vote for Senator Ted Cruz, now a Republican Senator, for president in 2016.

Not scientific, just interesting.

You can see that the results in progress do not favor a President Cruz. Taylor, a blue dot himself, points out that Dallas County went for Barack Obama twice. If it's true that Texas is going from red to purple, his part of the state is already blue. 

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that students have a constitutional right to vote where they go to school, even if they're considered an out-of-state student. But since the 2012 election, Republicans in Indiana and North Carolina have floated legislation to discourage college students from voting. 

In North Carolina, a Republican bill would raise taxes for the parents of any student who registers to vote at their college. The student votes, and the family gets punished.

Now Republicans in Ohio have come up with a new approach. In Ohio, eight of the 14 public universities routinely provide students with documents that make it possible for them to register to vote at school. But in the state House, Republicans are pushing a budget amendment (pdf) requiring schools that issue those documents to charge the student only in-state tuition, even if the student otherwise would pay the higher out-of-state rate. Under Ohio's scheme, the student votes and the school gets punished.

State Senator Nina Turner says the measure would give universities an incentive to make it harder for students to vote:

"[T]o force Ohio’s universities to do the dirty work of voter suppression is unconscionable."

Ohio universities say that lowering the tuition for everyone who wants to use their right to vote at school would cost the system $370 million a year. See also, from 2012: Tea Party challenges hundreds of student registrations in Ohio.

(Thanks to Ohio Capital Blog for the video; he's got lots more on this.)

Along with the new gun reform percolating in New Jersey, several bills for gun safety are on the docket in Maine. The Bangor Daily News reports that most of the bills in Maine have stalled, including a bill to limit magazine size.

At a hearing yesterday, Republican State Senator Gary Plummer suggested that limiting magazine size might have led to more deaths in Sandy Hook Elementary School. From the BDN: 

“I don’t believe if this law were in effect in that elementary school it would have saved one life,” Plummer said. He also said there is some information suggesting the Sandy Hook shooter was using a high-capacity clip that jammed and that allowed some children to escape. He said the shooter may have killed more if he was armed with just 10-round clips.

Investigators say the Sandy Hook shooter fired 154 rounds in less than five minutes, using 30-round magazines.

Laura Rushfeldt writes from Cambridge:

I took this 20 minutes ago out my window. Massachusetts Ave. at Inman Street, one block north of Central Square, taken this morning at 10:30am. COMPLETELY deserted, very eerie.

North Carolina State Senator Tommy Tucker wants to let local governments out of the requirement that they publish legal notices about important government decisions -- like planning a sewage treatment plant by your house, for instance.

The Charlotte Observer reports that after Tucker jammed his bill through committee, he told a newspaper publisher, "I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet."

The paper also notes that Tucker's proposal may be too much for his fellow Republicans, who now have unilateral control in North Carolina. Several of them are pushing the opposite kind of bill, one that would make it easier for governments to publish notices in the local paper.

(H/t Jim Romenesko)

Richard Matthews, pictured at right above, grew up in a devout Mormon family in Idaho. That's his late brother, Jonathan, on the left, and below, using the shooting range their grandfather built for them in the basement. The other day, going through old papers, Richard found a copy of a letter written by his young brother to the U.S. Congress asking them to protect hunting guns but ban the sale of military guns. The letter is dated December 22, 1993; the assault weapons ban passed nine months later.

Richard lives in North Dakota now, where he might be the bluest dot in the entire oil patch (more on that another day). He writes:

My brother, Jonathan, died at the age of 20 after a life long battle with kidney disease. He was a true product of the west. He loved guns more than anything. Even though he never weighed more than 80 pounds, he owned many guns and shotguns. He could not fire them without assistance. He continued to buy guns after he became too sick to fire them at all.

Jonathan believed strongly that there should be a ban on military assault weapons. He felt so strongly about it, that he wrote a letter to congress about it as a child, as well as to the NRA, an organization in which he held a lifetime membership. His letter is posted here. I got a great laugh out of it. It begins: "Dear Congress, I hope you're having a good time..." LOL, oh Jon, I assure you congress is having a VERY good time.

*Jonathan's mom, Kathryn Matthews, remembers him also writing to the NRA. She says that her family's concern has always been only with military weapons. She says her son learned marksmanship from his maternal grandfather, a national rifle champion, an avid deer hunter and a World War II veteran. Jonathan "dearly loved to go roadside hunting for sage hens and other small game with his dad who wisely let him shoot with a .22.," she writes. "Jonathan passed away at the age of 20, a very tiny but strong-willed little individual." You can see a draft of Jonathan's letter after the jump.

The handwritten draft reads:

Dear Congress,

I hope you are having a good time. There's one thing I don't agree with. I don't agree on letting military guns be legal for sitizens to buy. But I like hunting with hunting Rifels. I don't know if They should suppport the military weapons. I think they ought to ban military guns.

Because there is so much killing. Too much people are buying them to kill people. I think hunting gun are fun. Please protect them.

Your Friend,

Jonathan Matthew

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*After I first posted this, Kathryn Matthews contacted me and said she wanted to make sure her family's views were clear. The post has been updated to reflect her followup.

The New Zealand parliament has voted to legalize same-sex marriage. I don't know enough about New Zealand speechifying to gauge whether the Honorable Maurice Williamson of Pakuranga gave the speech of his life in calling for passage of the law, but dang:

"We are allowing two people who love each other to have that recognized, and I can't see what's wrong with that for love nor money, sir. I cannot. I cannot understand why someone would be opposed. I understand why people don't like what others do. That's fine. We're all in that category. But I give a promise to those people who are opposed to this bill, right now. I give you a watertight, guaranteed promise. The sun will still rise tomorrow. Your teenage daughter will still argue back with you as if she knows everything. Your mortgage will not grow. You will not have skin diseases or rashes, or toads in your beard, sir. The world will just carry on."

The vote went 77 to 44. The MP in the rainbow coat is the bill's sponsor, the Honorable Louisa Wall. Opponents of the new law, perhaps predictably, are calling for a referendum. But on a day when our own Congress seems so unable to move forward, Williamson's speech is just so tonic. (Thanks for sending this, Jo.)

UPDATE: @ChrisBoese writes that after the vote, the New Zealand parliament and the crowd broke into song. They're singing a Maori love song, "Pokarekare Ana." If you can imagine the U.S. Congress doing this, I wonder what they would sing.

Last week the North Carolina legislature held a hearing on a new bill to require photo ID in order to vote. So many speakers turned out with prepared scripts about stories of voter fraud -- prepared by a Tea Party voter-challenge group -- that the local press mentioned it as part of the coverage. At least one of the speakers, the woman on the right, mentioned it as part of her testimony. She told lawmakers:

"And I have of course here another one of these things from the Voter Integrity people who have done a magnificent job in their research."

Or maybe not. Over the weekend the group, the Voter Integrity Project, posted a note saying that it might have made mistakes in those scripts, but please make voting harder anyway. The statement in full:

Late this afternoon, we learned that some of our findings, revealed at the April 10 public Legislative hearing, may be inaccurate; so we plan to issue a full report after completing an audit. While we regret this human error and apologize for any embarrassment it may have caused to the presenters and to election officials, we caution the public against losing sight of the undeniable fact that North Carolina’s voter rolls are so corrupted that, without an effective voter ID law, it will be impossible to know who is really voting. Keeping that in mind, we look forward to constructive engagement with any stakeholders who support open and honest elections in our state.

Among the anecdotes prepared by the Voter Integrity Project were stories of noncitizens who were allowed to vote. You might remember our story about the Voter Integrity Project from last year, when the group challenged thousands of voter registrations just weeks before the election. The Voter Integrity Project challenged some registrations by saying the person was dead, even though the person was alive.

We also reported (video) that the Voter Integrity Project told the public it was a nonprofit, though in fact it was registered with the state as a business. The difference matters because by law, nonprofits must disclose their tax returns, giving the public a window into what they're up to. As a for-profit business, even with no profits, the Voter Integrity Project is asserting itself in the public sphere with no way for the public to know who is behind it or on what scale it is operating or who is responsible for the possibly inaccurate testimony given to North Carolina lawmakers last week.

As for the extent or nature of the possible findings last week, we've got a message in to the Voter Integrity Project. If we hear back, we'll let you know. You can watch video of the hearings yourself, courtesy of the indispensable @NC Capitol desk from WRAL.

The testimony quoted above is at about 32:00 here. The hearing begins with this reel. If you notice anything of particular interest, please mention it in the comments with the time it occurs. And thank you.

The poll-watching Tea Party group known as True the Vote opens another national summit today, with top elections officials from two states among the listed speakers. Announced by email yesterday from True the Vote, one of them is the Republican Secretary of State from Kansas, Kris Kobach, last seen considering taking Barack Obama off the ballot in this state. The other is the Republican Secretary of State from Colorado, Scott Gessler, last seen trying to purge voters from the rolls two weeks before the November election. 

Back home in Colorado, Gessler has sounded a little frustrated lately. Colorado's legislature has flipped from Republican to Democratic control, and the new majority wants to make voting easier. Colorado's county clerks, while not unanimously in favor of the changes, generally like them. From the Cortez Journal:

La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Lee Parker, a Republican, supports the bill and says it’s not a partisan issue.

"To me, this is really bipartisan. This makes sense. This is not Republican versus Democrat," Parker said.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Gessler is having a fit over the changes. He says the Democrats are "crazy" and guilty of "piss-poor thinking." And he says they're "trying to change the rules of the game in a very one-sided direction." That might be because making it harder to vote has generally helped Republicans, and making it easier has generally helped Democrats.

Democrats want to encourage mail-in voting by sending every voter a ballot, and they want to allow for same-day registration. The legislation, House Bill 1303 (pdf), comes up for its first hearing on Monday. 

The last time North Carolina Republican Robert Brawley served in the state House, lawmakers could accept gifts from lobbyists. That was in the 1980s and '90s. Years later, after a scandal in their own party, North Carolina Democrats passed a ban on lobbyist gifts. Now Representative Brawley is back, his Republican Party is in charge, and he'd like the gifts again, please. WRAL notes:

He's currently a member of House leadership, serving as chairman of the Finance committee, an influential post that would almost certainly attract lobbyists' interest. 

Brawley did not immediately respond to requests for an explanation of his proposal.*

Today is deadline day for new bills, and North Carolina lawmakers are bringing the last few forward. Republicans have also introduced a new sovereignty bill that calls for the federal government to back off, "effective immediately," on "mandates that are beyond the scope of any constitutionally delegated powers." This one goes in the pile along with the nullification bill to stop the great American gun-grab before it happens. Not being heard this session: A Democratic bill calling for equal pay for equal work. OTOH, Republicans want to cut $345 million in corporate taxes and replace the lost revenue with something they think up later. They are willing to charge voters for photo ID in order to cast a ballot, unless the voter swears to poverty (in which case, drug testing?).

Yesterday North Carolina citizens got a chance to visit their Capitol and make their opinions heard. The Raleigh News and Observer reports that House Speaker Thom Tillis slipped out rather than talk to the state NAACP leader, the Reverend William Barber. It's hard to know what to make of the video posted by the NAACP, except to say that the outnumbered liberals of the state do not seem to be giving up.

Bonus North Carolina item, after the jump.

The sponsor of the iced bill to give North Carolina an official state religion got asked, over email, if she'd be OK with opening a legislative session with an Islamic prayer. She responded:

 "No, I do not condone terrorism."

ADDING: Brawley tells WRAL that the reason he wants to do away with the ban on lobbyist gifts is that the ban and ethics laws in general just get in the way. "What makes you think a person without ethics is going to obey a law anyway?" he said.

From WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, this report on debate for a bill to require welfare applicants to pass a drug test:

Tempers flared after Bill Rowe with the N.C. Justice Center told lawmakers similar legislation in Florida and Michigan has been struck down by courts as unconstitutional.

"Our Fourth Amendment doesn't allow suspicion-less testing of people," Rowe said. "There's no decision that says this is OK."

Rowe also cited studies that show drug use is no more common among TANF recipients than in the general public.

Sen. Tommy Tucker, R-Union, argued with Rowe.

"You're OK with (drug users) getting federal dollars if they've had a doobie and get the munchies and need more food stamps?" Tucker asked. "Sit down."

The Senate committee voted to advance the bill. The plan is for welfare applicants in North Carolina to foot the $100 or more for the testing upfront, then get reimbursed if they passed. WRAL says no one could say where the money for reimbursements would come from.