Commentary roundup: What newspapers around the state are saying

Dallas Morning News

Feb. 22 editorial, "Banning polling places at Texas universities is bad politics."

If there’s one thing we know we need, it’s more people voting. And we especially need young people who are going to inherit this nation’s future to be involved.

It’s baffling then why state Rep. Carrie Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, filed House Bill 2390 last week to prohibit polling places at Texas universities and colleges. Isaac promotes the bill as addressing campus safety. If you believe that, you might not be ready for Politics 101.

The bill instead appears to discriminate against students for assumed political preferences. When a political party goes out of its way to prevent people from voting, the motive becomes clear.

And Isaac told KBTX-TV in Bryan that “all schools are target-rich environments.” That sadly might be true. But in a country awash in almost totally unregulated firearms, few public spaces are safe anymore, from the dance hall, to the church house to the playground.

Gathering to vote is an inherently public act. And colleges and universities, often with their own police forces, have been used as polling places for a long time.

— Dallas Morning News Editorial Board

Houston Chronicle

Feb. 22 editorial, "Disgraced Uvalde police chief could get rehired as a cop. So much for accountability."

For the love of God, how can Pete Arredondo have successfully appealed his record in the state database that tracks law enforcement officers who were fired?

Arredondo’s utter cowardice and incompetence as the police chief of the Uvalde school district were among the primary reasons it took law enforcement more than an hour to confront the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary. From waiting for equipment he already had to spending 40 minutes looking for keys to a door that wasn't locked to leaving his radio behind so he couldn't hear the pleading 911 calls from inside the classroom, Arredondo failed his most critical assignment as the commanding officer that day.

When the disgraced chief, who had the audacity to call his firing a “public lynching,” appealed his record, the school district failed to show up to the hearing and his less-than-honorable discharge was upgraded by default.

Less than honorable? Try, "borderline criminal."

It took family and friends of those killed at Robb Elementary three months of showing up to get Arredondo fired. They held vigils. They attended city council meetings. They camped outside government offices. "Turn in your badge and step down," shouted 10-year-old survivor Caitlyne Gonzales at the school board that finally voted to terminate his employment.

The minimum the Texas Legislature can do this session in the wake of the worst school shooting in the state’s history is to fix the system that tracks bad cops.

— Houston Chronicle Editorial Board

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Feb. 17 editorial, "Texans shouldn't have to lose a state park. Here's how to keep it from happening again."

The lesson of Fairfield Lake is to plan ahead. The state must recognize that Texas needs more parks, which means more money to acquire land. Expanding current parks is also a priority. And it must be done before land is spoiled or sold off.Texas also should have a master plan for its long-term need for natural respites, much as lawmakers aggressively planned for water demand in decades to come. That means ensuring a new source of funding to acquire more land. The budget surplus of $32.7 billion is already weighed down with a lot of requests, but this is the kind of long-term planning in which wise use of money now will benefit Texans long after current officeholders are gone. It's the stuff of legacies.No one relishes losing a state park, especially when we know we need more than we have. But eminent domain — the government's power to seize land for projects in the public interest, while fairly compensating property owners — is a heavy weapon that should be sparingly deployed. Parks can qualify, of course, but eminent domain should be reserved for necessities that cannot be met any other way, such as transportation projects.Seizing Fairfield Lake, as a bill offered by Hill County Republican Rep. Angelia Orr would authorize, could mean years of expensive litigation. And frankly, the private landowners don't bear the brunt of the blame here. Owners have a sacred right to profit from their land, and the parkland's owners have been more than generous with it.State officials have had five decades to think about securing Fairfield Lake and never took the need seriously. Five decades from now, Texans should be able to look back on a tough lesson learned and see it as the moment policymakers took seriously the need to secure parkland, protected access to the soul-soothing sights and sounds of undeveloped land and invested for the needs of millions of new Texans, as well as the state's wildlife.

— Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board

San Antonio Express-News

Feb. 21 editorial, "In amplifying the Big Lie, Fox News made a mockery of press freedom."

Let’s just pause to remember that Fox correctly called Arizona and was the first to do so. The network got it right — and yet the fear was getting it right would destroy the brand.

In this alarming juxtaposition between fact and fiction, the hosts proved more adept at theatrics than journalism, the artifice so staggering that they freely acknowledged it — behind closed doors. They were reading from a script. The hosts, like politicians, were appealing to their base — an audience of far-right viewers.

The irony is that the hosts recognized the tightrope they were walking. Lies are as heinous as the men and women who spew them, and when discovered, they can backfire. This is what the Fox personalities feared.

“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real … an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us,” Carlson texted one of his producers.

Fox claims the lawsuit represents an “an assault” on the First Amendment, but it was the network that attacked press freedoms, which the Founding Fathers designed to illuminate, not obfuscate.

— San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin American-Statesman Commentary Roundup: Feb. 26, 2023