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Digging in for a new Brookshire’s Grocery
By Barbara Gartman
Monitor Staff Writer
MABANK–Blessed with a beautiful, warm day, about 100 citizens, dignitaries and Brookshire grocery staff marked the official start of a new facility in Mabank Tuesday.
The store, set to be completed sometime in the fall, will be almost 10,000 square feet larger than the current outlet.
The present facility covers 28,000 square feet and the new store will total 37,400 square feet, Mabank Economic Development Corporation executive director Scott Confer announced.
“We have been working on this since 2007, hoping this would come to pass,” Confer said.
Mabank Mayor Larry Teague expressed his appreciation for those who turned out in attendance.
“We welcome everyone to this event,” he said, adding it was a great day for the city of Mabank.
The family-owned business has several stores in Henderson County, county judge Richard Sanders noted.
“They are doing a great job. They are great neighbors,” Sanders added as he commended Confer and the EDC for bringing businesses to the area.
Mabank Store manager Dean Fannin introduced his management staff and commented on changes customers would be seeing.
“New produce islands and frozen food coolers, new seafood and dairy cases will give customers more selection and variety than ever before,” he said.
The addition of nearly a dozen aisles will provide 1,400 linear feet for groceries and general merchandise, much of which haven’t been carried before,” Fannin added.
Store hours will remain the same – 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week,
“I think this new store stays true to our company’s mission of providing a great food and shopping experience,” Fannin explained.
Kaufman County Precinct 4 Commissioner Tom Manning commented on what the new store would contribute to Mabank.
His remarks included the accomplishments and ability of Mabank officials and citizens to make their plans and to, “get it done.”
Brad Brookshire, grandson of company founder W. T. Brookshire, recounted the beginnings of the company, almost 84 years ago.
Company president and CEO Rick Rayford summarized the company’s plans and accomplishments.
Business members attending included Andrea Pickens from Tri-County Ford, Cedar Creek Lake Area Chamber of Commerce president Jo Ann Hanstrom and personnel from Solar Turbines.
Others in attending were Leigh Poole from state Rep. Lance Gooden’s office, Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Johnny Adams, regional representative for U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s office Phillip Smith, local bankers Ronnie Davis, Ralph Fortner and Tate Cramm, plus many other guests.

Dept. of Justice rejects Texas voter-ID law
Response is rapid and vocal
Monitor Staff Reports
AUSTIN–Monday the United States Department of Justice refused to approve Texas’ Voter ID law signed by Gov. Rick Perry in July 2011, to prevent voter fraud.
Negative response to both the refusal and also the delay in gaining an answer from the DOJ was fast and furious.
Texas submitted its application for preclearance to the Justice Department in July, 2011 and had expected an answer by the end of September.
Perry, who deemed the legislation among other emergency matters during the 82nd Texas Legislature, said “Texas has a responsibility to ensure elections are fair, beyond reproach and accurately reflect the will of voters.
“The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane. The denial is yet another example of the Obama Administration’s continuing and pervasive federal overreach,” Perry responded.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called the rejection “purely political.” Cornyn, who serves on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee and is a former Texas Attorney General said, “Voter identification laws are constitutional and vital to protecting the integrity of the democratic process.
“Today’s decision reeks of politics and appears to be an effort by the Department of Justice to carry water for the President’s reelection campaign,” Cornyn concluded.
Dems on the other hand applauded the news. Katie O’Connor, staff lawyer with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project stated: “The Texas’ voter ID law would prevent countless Latinos, African-Americans, elderly citizens, and others from casting their ballot. We’re pleased the Department of Justice has recognized the harms this discriminatory law would have on people’s fundamental right to vote.”
According to a recent Texas Tribune article by Julian Aguilar, the DOJ argued that Texas did not meet its burden of proof under Section 5 of the Voters Right Act to show the measure “would not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters, and therefore the department objects to the Texas voter identification law,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman.
“According to the state’s own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack the required identification,” she pointed out.
The article further reports that Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote in a letter to Keith Ingram, the director of Texas’ elections division, on Monday that there are three considerations in rejecting the application.
“First, according to the most recent American Community Survey three-year estimates, 7.3 percent of Hispanic or Latino households do not have an available vehicle, as compared with only 3.8 percent of non-Hispanic white households that lack an available vehicle.
“Second, in 81 of the state’s 254 counties, there are no operational driver’s license offices. The disparity in the rates between Hispanics and non-Hispanics with regard to the possession of either a driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS is particularly stark in counties without driver’s license offices.
According to the September 2011 data, 10.0 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s license offices do not have either form of identification, compared to 5.5 percent of non-Hispanics.
And according to January data, that comparison is 14.6 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s license offices, as compared to 8.8 percent of non-Hispanics. During the legislative hearings, one senator stated that some voters in his district could have to travel up to 176 miles roundtrip in order to reach a driver’s license office.
The legislature tabled amendments that would have, for example, provided reimbursement to voters who live below the poverty line for travel expenses incurred in applying for the requisite identification.”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who expected the federal government’s rejection, said late last week he plans to forge ahead with the lawsuit he filed last month to have the bill implemented immediately. The Justice Department has until April 9 to respond to the lawsuit.
“The Department of Justice’s decision is extremely disappointing, especially since the data they demanded came from matching two separate data sets never designed to be matched, and their agency was warned that matches from these data sets would be misleading, Secretary of State Hope Andrade stated in a press release Monday..
In an op-ed by Rich Lowry of The New York Post titled “The make-believe tyranny of photo ID” says DOJ head Eric Holder should bone up on the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in a 2008 case upholding Indiana’s voter-ID law.
The liberal Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion. The court held that “there is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the state’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters,” and “we cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters.”
In addition, Lowry points to Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation that reported that black turnout increased in Georgia in 2008, the first election under a voter-ID law, more than it did in Mississippi, which didn’t have such a law. A study by the University of Delaware and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln concluded that “concerns about voter-identification laws affecting turnout are much ado about nothing.”