Indigent defense short-shrifted in Byrne/JAG grants, says Constitution Project

Could/should Texas be spending more federal grant dollars to support indigent defense? And should the Governor's Criminal Justice Division continue to forbid using Texas' deepest well of federal criminal-justice grant funds for that purpose?

A press release Grits received via email from the Constitution Project argues that a greater proportion of federal grant money aimed at criminal justice should go toward providing lawyers for the poor: 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Almost none the money the federal government provides to state and local governments for justice system improvements goes to helping to defend poor people, a new study shows. The report bears out claims that supporters of indigent defense have made for years that there is an enormous disparity between governmental financial support for prosecutors and defenders.

According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday, almost half the money block granted to the states under the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program grants goes to fund law enforcement and prosecution activities, with less than one percent being used for public defenders or other private lawyers appointed to assist those who cannot afford legal representation on their own.

"Despite repeated calls from the legal community for improved funding for indigent defense, and even though Attorney General Holder himself has declared a 'crisis' in the right to counsel for the poor, this study shows that state and local governments continue to give justice for the needy short shrift when they divide up the federal dollars they receive," said Virginia Sloan, president of The Constitution Project (TCP), a bipartisan legal watchdog group.

The GAO report says that the Department of Justice (DOJ) distributed more than $500 million to state and local government under the Byrne JAG program in five of the six fiscal years between 2005 and 2010. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the money sent to local governments, and only seven-tenths of one percent of the money allocated to the states, was spent on indigent legal defense, the report shows. In contrast, 54% of the funds DOJ sent to localities, and 38% of the funds sent to states, were spent on law enforcement and prosecution activities.

The report indicates that among the reasons that indigent defenders do not receive more funding is that, most of the time, they are not part of the decision-making process that disperses the funds, and many are not even aware they are eligible to apply for them. Nearly two-thirds of the public defender offices responding to a GAO survey said they did not know that they were eligible for federal funding, and 31% said they lacked the knowledge or the personnel to complete the application process.

In responding to the GAO report, the DOJ indicated it was taking steps to make public defenders more aware of their eligibility. ...

TCP released a comprehensive bipartisan report on problems in the indigent defense system, Justice Denied: America's Continuing Neglect of Our Constitutional Right to Counsel, in 2009.

A copy of the GAO report is available online.

Regrettably, GAO's main recommendation is pretty weak:

GAO recommends that DOJ increase grantees’ awareness that funding can be allocated for indigent defense and collect data on such funding.

DOJ concurred with the recommendations.

The feds could and should do more to balance the equation than just make grantees "aware." Whenever the feds specify that a proportion of grant money be spent on indigent defense, they do it. From GAO:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) administered 13 grant programs from fiscal years 2005 through 2010 that recipients could use to support indigent defense, 4 of which required recipients to use all or part of the funding for this purpose. DOJ also provides training to indigent defense providers, among other things.

From fiscal years 2005 through 2010, recipients of the 4 grants that required spending for indigent defense allocated or planned to use $13.3 million out of $21.2 million in current dollars for indigent defense.

However, among the 9 grants that did not require allocations or awards for indigent defense, two-thirds or more of state, local, and tribal respondents to GAO’s surveys reported that they did not use funds for this purpose, partly due to competing priorities.

Clearly grantees will spend money on indigent defense when the feds tell they they have to, but prioritize law enforcement and prosecution spending nearly exclusively when left to their own devices.

As it happens, Grits has quite a bit of history with Byrne grants in Texas, spending five years on a campaign to convince Texas to shift its federal block-grant spending away from Tulia-style drug task forces, including authoring two public policy reports on the subject (see here and here). Initially, after the drug-task forces were de-funded in 2006, roughly half the Byrne grant money began to fund the Governor's new border security projects while much of the rest went to fund things like drug courts, diversion programs and frequently law enforcement equipment. (Here's an example of Byrne/JAG grants from a recent quarter to give you an idea of how the money is spent in Texas today. See the full list (pdf) of the various grant funding streams administered by the Governor's Criminal Justice Division.)

As drug task forces began to shut down - either from scandal or from counties' fear of increased liability as their insurers demanded higher premiums in the wake of the Tulia and Hearne episodes - we actually sent out blank grant applications to counties when I was at ACLU of Texas suggesting they apply for money to use for other, more constructive things, particularly drug courts and diversion programming. So I understand and agree with the strategy of making applicants aware of their eligibility, but that's not enough in and of itself. If Congress and/or DOJ want Byrne/JAG money spent on indigent defense they may need to require some minimum proportion go to that purpose.

Presently most indigent defense grants in Texas are funneled through the Texas Indigent Defense Commission grant programs, which are financed (at lower levels than Byrne grants) largely through the federal Office of Justice Programs. If Byrne grant money could also be used to launch indigent defense programs, I bet a lot of Texas counties would apply for that purpose.

Unfortunately, on the website of the Texas Governor's Criminal Justice Division is a "Guide to Grants" (pdf) describing the various funding streams doled out by that office, which specifically excludes "legal services for adult offenders" from allowable grant expenditures. Here instead are the areas the Justice Assistance Grants in Texas are designated to fund:

• Border Initiatives
• Court Programs (except Drug Courts)
• Data/Information Sharing Systems
• Drug Court - Adult
• Drug Court - Family
• Drug Court - Juvenile
• Equipment-Only Purchases
• Gangs – Adult
• Investigation
• Prosecution
• Substance Abuse
• Training
• Technology

Indigent defense is notably absent from the list. So even if DOJ increases the Governor's Criminal Justice Division "awareness that funding can be allocated for indigent defense," unless that restriction is changed it won't boost the proportion of Byrne/JAG grants going to pay for it in Texas. Larry Akey at the Constitution Project says that "it’s Texas policy" and not any federal restriction "that prevents them from using Byrne-JAG for indigent defense." He wrote in an email that:

Indigent defense has long been an approved use. Starting in 2010, the DOJ has stated explicitly in  application materials that indigent defense is an appropriate use.  For example, in 2012, the Byrne JAG state solicitation indicates:
 
“Another key priority area is ensuring that justice is truly done in the criminal justice system is support for indigent defense. BJA continues to encourage states and SAAs to use JAG funds to support the vital needs of the indigent defense community. Attorney General Holder has consistently stressed that the crisis in indigent defense reform is a serious concern which must be addressed if true justice is to be achieved in our nation.”

If that's accurate, it's Governor Rick Perry's Criminal Justice Division policies, not federal law or regulations, keeping counties from applying for Byrne/JAG money for indigent defense programs.

Grits contacted the Governor's Criminal Justice Division on Friday to ask why that rule is in place, but after an email query and leaving a message with a receptionist did not receive a return call by the end of the day. I also asked Jim Bethke from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission about the restriction. He said he knew nothing specifically about Byrne/JAG grants, but dashed off a quick note to say "CJD has been supportive of various initiatives we have brought to them over the years.  Travel funds for county officials to attend indigent defense travels, collaborations on veteran defender programs, and I’m certain there are other things too. And more importantly than the 'CJD' funds, the Governor has supported the growth of indigent defense appropriations for our agency."

Even if the Governor has been supportive of indigent defense funding from the state budget - and that's no small credit to him in these trying fiscal times - I bet there are more than a few county commissioners from both parties (at least those whose counties don't get Border Star money), who would like to see federal and state grants focused more on basic statewide needs like improving indigent defense and less on a handful of often thinly populated counties along the border.

For example, in one recent quarter, Webb County (Laredo) received roughly $242,000 for a drug court program plus $303,000 in JAG money under Operation Border Star. The same quarter, much smaller Starr and Maverick Counties received $279K and $282K, respectively, under Operation Border Star. By contrast, just as example, Lubbock County the same quarter received three grants for specialty courts totaling roughly $211,000. Jim Hogg County, by comparison, with a total population of less than 5,000 people, received $233,646 that quarter for a "Major Crimes Unit." A lot more people live in Lubbock County than Webb, much less Jim Hogg, for heaven's sake, but because border security has been prioritized over indigent defense, they receive less federal grant money. And that doesn't even speak to the enormous pots of state money from the general fund the Governor distributed along the border on top of this federal pork.

It's possible the timing is fortuitous to attack this disparity in the distribution of Byrne/JAG grants. These are block grants distributed at the discretion of the Governor. But the Governor has likely gotten all the political mileage he can out of his border security message (it didn't do him much good, for example, in the presidential primaries), especially now that economic malaise and the Obama Administration (or do I repeat myself?) have functionally combined to reduce the illegal immigration deluge Perry decried with such anguish in his 2006 and 2010 campaigns. Indigent defense is something virtually every county is struggling with, and this might be a good moment for the governor to pivot on this question, much as he did in 2006 to eliminate Byrne/JAG funding for drug task forces, a move which many saw as flying in the face of his "tough on crime" image.

Finally, on a seemingly tangential yet pivotal, related subject, none of that will matter for Texas counties which can't get 90% of their old case dispositions inputted into the state's data system by September 1. These are Byrne/JAG funds are precisely the grants the Governor's Criminal Justice Division said they would stop doling out to counties that didn't begin reporting case outcomes. So border counties, in particular, had better start getting their ducks in a row. Here are the rates of case disposition from border counties recorded with DPS according to data released when the Governor's office announced the new data-entry requirements:

Brewster: 57%
Cameron: 43
Culberson: 28
El Paso: 81
Hidalgo: 73
Hudspeth: 2
Jeff Davis: 25
Kinney: 54
Maverick: 30
Presidio: 20
Starr: 19
Terrell: 27
Val Verde: 69
Webb: 30
Zapata: 3

Source: DPS (pdf)

So some of these counties - not to mention more than a few others around the state - may become ineligible for Byrne/JAG money after September 1. If that happens, the Governor should push to remove the restriction on funding indigent defense with JAG funds and use freed up money to finance the same mission being promoted at the Indigent Defense Commission. The Governor has said many times that defending the border is the feds' job and he's spending mind-boggling sums there in Texas resources and manpower to do a job the feds won't do. Well they're doing it now. It's time to declare victory and repatriate those resources back to Texas' domestic needs, letting the rest of the state benefit more proportionally from the federal tax dollars they send to Washington. Indigent defense is something virtually every Texas county struggles with. Why not remove that requirement and focus some portion of Byrne/JAG grants on indigent defense projects, just as the GAO and the Constitution Project say other states have done?

Either way, the Governor's Criminal Justice Division should change its rules to eliminate the ban on JAG grants for "legal services for adult offenders." There are no shortage of worthy programs to finance, and the maximal emphasis on border grants, especially to the smallest counties, has gone on well beyond the point where increased utility justifies the cost.

Committees to address jail overcrowding, border security

The House County Affairs Committee will meet Thursday in El Paso, and one of items addressed will be their interim charge to "Conduct a general study of issues facing county jails. The study should include innovative ways to address overcrowding, the impact homelessness has on the county jail population, and recommendations for handling inmates undergoing detoxification and withdrawal from drugs and alcohol."

Grits can't attend, but I'm curious: What recommendations would readers offer to address crowded jails, homelessness, and "inmates undergoing detoxification"?

In another away-from-the-capitol hearing, the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee meets this morning in Copperas Cove to:

Examine the extent of interstate coordination concerning border security and intelligence sharing and determine whether any changes to state law are needed to enhance that coordination and cooperation.

Examine state and federal law to determine whether existing provisions adequately address security and efficiency concerns for steamship agencies and land ports of entry along the Texas-Mexico border.  Evaluate whether the state and the federal government have provided sufficient manpower, infrastructure, and technology to personnel in the border region.

Regrettably, neither of these events will be broadcast live.

DPS outsourced key border security tasks to shadowy private contractor

Here's a story that should have been broken by a Texas publication, but credit must instead go to Tom Barry at Alternet for a remarkable piece of reporting titled "Who Is Securing the Texas Border? How Private Contractors Mislead the Public, Then Get Rich Off Taxpayer Money."

Since 2006 many of the key figures in state-led border security operations and information campaigns have identified themselves as DPS employees or part of the Texas Rangers to the public, policy community and the media, disguising their true identities.

The business card he handed me during the sheriffs meeting identified Sikes as the director of the Border Security Operations Center (BSOC) – which is a type of fusion center for border-security operations in Texas. It’s a project of the Texas Rangers Division, which in turn is a branch of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

However, Mac Sikes is neither a Texas Ranger nor a DPS employee. Like most of the other key figures behind the Lone Star State’s border security campaign, Sikes is a contract employee.

A “senior operational analyst” at Abrams Learning & Information Systems (ALIS), Sikes became director of BSOC as part of the firm’s $3-5 million annual contracts with DPS since 2006. The recent DPS decision -- in response to a public records request -- to release the ALIS contract revealed the true identity of Sikes.

The Border Security Operations Center is the nexus of the Texas’ own border security initiatives, collectively known as Operation Border Star. ALIS, a homeland-security consulting firm with offices in Arlington, Virginia, was founded in 2004 by Ret. Army Gen. John Abrams to cash in on the billions of dollars in new government contracting funds that started to flow after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

Since 2006 ALIS functioned as the hidden force behind virtually all non-federal border-security operations in Texas. Whether it’s strategy formulation, border crime-mapping, operations management, or public relations, ALIS and its team of consultants have been closely involved in creating what Governor Rick Perry calls the “Texas model of border security.”

Says Barry, "It would be hard to exaggerate the degree to which Governor Perry and DPS Chief McCraw have outsourced state border-security, homeland-security, and public-safety programs to Washington Beltway contractors." Further, and this is certainly accurate, "There has been absolutely no review by policy makers or by the public of DPS outsourcing of border-security strategy and operations." Maybe now it will come.

In addition, wrote Barry, a February report (pdf) from the Texas state auditor found a number of irregularities with federal grant spending:

The audit reviewed a representative selection of cases among the $265.9 million in federal grants and subgrants to DPS -- in the areas of homeland security, border security, emergency management, and law enforcement interoperability.

Among the findings of negligence and incompetence were these startling instances:

• A draw-down of $755,509 in federal funds to issue a duplicate payment to one subgrantee.
•  Five of the six procurements (83%) examined by the auditor in the cluster of federal grants for homeland and border security were not bid competitively as required.
• DPS categorized four of the five procurements examined by the auditor as “emergency procurements,” and in three of those four DPS was unable to document why they were processed as “emergency” contracts.
• DPS has no system to track, administer, monitor federal subgrants – as federal guidelines require, leading to routine occurrences of duplicate payments, dipping into one federal fund to pay for unrelated programs, and failure to submit required reports and audits.
• Complete failure to track interest rates on unused federal funds and to remit those funds, as required by federal grant guidelines.
• Access to law-enforcement databases by contract programmers who lacked proper authorization or clearance.

This is a good example why Grits is under the impression that Texas would benefit from more original reporting on criminal-justice topics. Our media should have picked up on the outsourcing of border security operations long ago, but not a single reporter (MSM or otherwise) regularly attends meetings of the Public Safety Commission, much less covers the agency in remotely the level of detail, say, that the Austin Statesman's Mike Ward does for TDCJ. There's just a vacuum of coverage on the agency's activities that journalism should but doesn't routinely fill. I'm happy Mr. Barry wrote the piece, but every political or crime-beat reporter and editor in Texas should be kicking themselves for having missed the story for the last half-dozen years until after the practice is a fait accompli.

See more at Barry's blog, Border Lines.

MORE: From the Austin Statesman.

The newest toy in the box, part two: DPS deploying military-style gunships in Rio Grande

The Texas Department of Public Safety will soon deploy its own mini-navy along the Rio Grande consisting of gunboats armed with automatic weapons, according to KHOU-TV, which reported that:

next month it's about to launch its own fleet of gunboats.

"It sends a message: Don't mess with Texas," said Jose Rodriguez, Texas DPS Regional Commander.

The state is spending almost $3.5 million in tax money for six 34-foot gunboats, each which can operate in as little as two feet of water. The vessels are outfitted with automatic weapons and bulletproof shielding.

The state's first boat is scheduled to be launched next month to operate alongside the Border Patrol.

"One agency cannot do this alone," Rodriguez said.

The gunboats will be looking for suspicious scenes, like another one the DPS helicopter captured in December showing 10 men riding down the river and sitting on bundles of drugs that were no doubt destined for the U.S.

Anytime someone in law enforcement says they're doing something to "send a message," much less in the same breath with the slogan "Don't Mess With Texas," that's a red flag for spending on worthless pork and PR-driven policing. The vast majority of contraband comes in through the checkpoints, not across the river. (According to a recent report by the Texas Border Coalition, "There is a mere 28 percent chance that a smuggler will get caught at the nation’s ports of entry, compared with a 90 percent of being detected between the ports of entry.") So why double down resources on the parts of the border - i.e., the stretches of river between the checkpoints - where smuggling has mostly been successfully restrained?

There's also real potential for creating unnecessary problems, starting the first time somebody fires off those automatic weapons toward the Mexican side of the river.

"Send a message" is code for "just for show." Patrolling the Rio Grande in crafts outfitted like Swift Boats headed up the river in Vietnam won't make anyone any safer or reduce the availability of drugs in the US, but the boat sure looks cool pictured there in the newspaper, doesn't it? And I suppose for the troopers it's more interesting duty than making traffic stops.

Anatomy of a sweet smelling cartel money laundering front

Earlier this year, Grits argued in a post both lauded and criticized that money laundering of drug profits artificially boosted Texas' economy by propping up seemingly legitimate front businesses, contributing to the so-called Texas economic "miracle." The Texas Tribune's Julian Aguilar has an excellent feature describing one such company - a Laredo-based perfumeria, of all things - exemplifying that dynamic.

Photo by the Texas Tribune's Jennifer Whitney

DPS, border violence, and the boy who cried 'wolf'

Last month when two former generals issued a report (pdf) commissioned by Texas DPS and the Ag Department claiming massive rates of violence on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, Grits responded with a post titled  "Lies, damn lies and border security rhetoric: New study aims to fabricate fear."

In a similar vein, yesterday the Austin Statesman definitively debunked that report, showing that border crime including murders has declined during the period that violence on the Mexico side of the river has surged.  Indeed, because reality doesn't support the politicized claims of "spillover" border violence, DPS has begun keeping its own list that appears to overstate cartel involvement in Texas-side violence:

An American-Statesman analysis of all 14 counties that share a border with Mexico and two dozen border cities shows that violent crime along the Texas side of the Rio Grande fell 3.3 percent between 2006 and 2010.

During the same period, the combined number of murders in the 14 counties fell 33 percent, to 73 in 2010 from 97 in 2006.

Further, most counties and cities situated directly across from the worst of the Mexican violence also saw their crime rates decrease, even as thousands were slaughtered on the Mexican side.

One reason for the gap between what state officials say and what the numbers show is that state agencies increasingly have moved away from using traditional statistics to describe the security situation along the border, and have instead begun using new categories of crime reporting that in some cases have raised questions about accuracy.

The Department of Public Safety, for example, has begun keeping a list of what it considers cartel-related killings in the state.

Yet two Austin-area murders on the list appear to have been caused by a fight over a cellphone, according to court records. The connection of murders in other parts of the state to cartel members have been questioned by border law enforcement chiefs as well.

There's a "boy who cried 'wolf'" aspect to these sorts of claims, particularly after the Governor and DPS overstated crime fighting benefits of nine-figure border-security efforts like Operations "Linebacker" and "Wrangler." I'm glad to see the MSM calling them on it.

Regular readers know the real "spillover" violence along the border is in the other direction, with American gang members crossing the river to commit literally thousands of murders in Mexico. Border security presents real problems, but if we don't define them accurately it becomes impossible to craft effective solutions.

Lies, damn lies and border security rhetoric: New study aims to fabricate fear

In order to justify massive amounts of border security pork and to bolster the Governor's anti-immigration bona fides, since 2006 the Governor and his former homeland security director Steve McCraw, who now leads the Department of Public Safety, have consistently overstated the amount of crime in border counties, raising the spurious specter of "spillover" violence from the cartel wars in Mexico onto the US side of the river.

In reality, any close observer of border realities knows that the real "spillover" of violence along the border is in the other direction, with Texas-based prison gangs like Barrio Azteca serving as soldiers and assassins for feuding drug cartels. In rare moments of candor, DPS officials have told the Legislature that in many cases "command and control" of cartel activity has shifted to the US side, with cartel leaders themselves seeking safety from the chaotic and violent environments south of the Rio Grande.

So I wasn't surprised to see that DPS and (for some reason) the Texas Ag Department teamed up to hire two big-name ex-generals, including former Clinton-era "Drug Czar" Barry McCaffrey, to perform an anecdote-driven security study (pdf) released last week which contradicts all available data about crime on the US side of the border to falsely claim that violence on the American side poses as great a threat as in Mexican border towns. Reported the Austin Statesman ("Report cites anecdotes to claim spillover violence," Sept. 27), despite claims by the generals that South Texas has become a war zone:

Federal crime statistics from cities and counties along the Southwest border have not shown spikes in violence, and last year the Congressional Research Service found that FBI statistics do not indicate whether there has been spillover from the violence raging in Mexico. Officials along the border have presented differing accounts of drug cartel-related violence.

Indeed, the sourcing for the most serious allegations in the report turns out to be unbelievably sketchy:

During a news conference after the report was released, McCaffrey raised eyebrows when he spoke of "hundreds of people murdered on our side of the frontier," a statistic that far exceeded the 22 killings between January 2010 and May 2011 identified by the Department of Public Safety as being related to drug cartels. When asked about the number, McCaffrey pointed to statements from a Brooks County rancher, who told reporters that hundreds of bodies had been found in the county in recent years.

Most of the bodies were those of illegal immigrants crossing the brush trying to avoid the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias and not victims of direct assaults, according to the Brooks County sheriff's department.

So the bulk of US side deaths McCaffrey attributes to drug cartels a) stem from failed attempts at illegal immigration, not the drug war, and b) weren't actually murders according to law enforcement. Such obfuscations are regrettable if not surprising, as border security issues have become highly politicized. The Statesman reported:

The issue of spillover violence has increasingly pitted Republican lawmakers and leaders, including Gov. Rick Perry, against President Barack Obama's administration.

"Our pleas for help are being met with denial and lame jokes," Texas Agriculture Secretary Todd Staples said Monday. "The threat grows more violent every day, and more resources are needed."

In May, Obama traveled to El Paso and declared the border more secure than ever, accusing Republicans of using the issue of border security to delay discussion of immigration reform.

"Maybe they'll say we need a moat," Obama said at the time. "Or alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied."

Earlier this month, Perry blasted Obama during a presidential debate as either having poor "intel" or being an "abject liar."

But since law enforcement sources support President Obama's interpretation of what's happening on the border instead of Rick Perry's, McCaffrey and Co. relied on anonymous sources that blatantly contradict the law-enforcement interests who've received tens of millions in border-security grants from the governor. Apparently those folks are credible when it comes to doling out pork, but are all fibbing when they report the number of murders in their jurisdictions. How much sense does that make?

Anyone familiar with McCaffrey's record as Drug Czar won't be surprised by such fabrications. Indeed, as Drug Czar he was literally statutorily obligated to mislead the public about the drug war. Apparently old habits die hard.

Surprise to no one: Drug smuggling increased after border wall built

Drug smuggling in the Rio Grande Valley increased after the much-touted border wall went up in the area, a Sheriff's lieutenant told a community meeting yesterday. Reported the McAllen Monitor ("Impact of border wall discussed at meeting," Sept. 18):

Drug trafficking from Mexico into Cameron County has increased, not decreased, since the border fence was built, a sheriff’s lieutenant said Saturday at a public meeting.

It was one of many points discussed at the “Border Wall Impact” meeting hosted by State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. at the Fort Brown Memorial Golf Course. The event brought together legislators, city representatives, state and county law enforcement and private citizens to air concerns about the fence.

“Is the fence keeping drugs from coming in? No,” Lieutenant Rick Perez said responding to a question. “We have more drugs now than before.”

Perez is part of the special investigations unit of the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department.

This outcome was as predictable as the sunrise. Law enforcement has known for years that most drug trafficking happens at the legal checkpoints, not in between them. Even in between the checkpoints, the wall can be easily defeated with tactics ranging from flying ultralight aircraft to drop drugs on the other side to flinging drugs with large catapults to waiting accomplices on the US side. Anyway, show me a 20 foot wall and I'll show you a 21 foot ladder.

This was never more than symbolism, and even Governor Rick Perry can see a border wall adds little to border security. But state Rep. Rene Oliveira told the audience, “The wall is here whether we like it or not ... I don’t think anybody is going to tear it down. The political will is clearly nonexistent for that.” For my part, I wouldn't be so pessimistic. There were many years when one could easily say there was "no political will" to bring down the Berlin Wall, but eventually the wall fell. Who knows, maybe if Rick Perry is elected president, he'll go to Congress and demand, echoing Ronald Reagan, that they "tear down this wall."