The race pits veteran incumbent Rep. Debra Maggart against Courtney Rogers, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel.

“We feel both women are excellent candidates each with their own unique strengths and perspectives and each will serve us in the state legislature in their own way,” SURG told its members.

SURG also said it disagreed with activists from other tea party groups who have blamed Maggart for the failure of certain legislation at the state.

“While we understand the desire to hold someone accountable for the failure of these bills, there is no evidence that Debra Maggart is responsible for the defeat or withdrawal of any of these bills.”

The group announced that “no candidate achieved the national support threshold required to enter the Americans Elect Online Convention in June.”

“The primary process for the Americans Elect nomination has come to an end,” Americans Elect said in a statement.

Americans Elect’s chief operating officer, Elliott Ackerman, came to Vanderbilt University and met with The Tennessean‘s editorial board in November. Two representatives of the group filed a petition for ballot access containing more than 72,600 signatures of Tennessee voters – many more than the 40,039 valid ones that were required – in March.

“For many Tennesseans, TN.gov is the primary way they interact with and experience state government,” the governor said in a news release. “The goal of this new design is to enhance this experience by presenting users with a path to the content and services they need in the most efficient and effective way possible.”

Here’s The Associated Press’s take:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee has redesigned its state website to improve its function and look.

One key change was making the website more accessible for mobile devices.

Officials say years of usage data showed that mobile users were usually in search of the same content as desktop users.

With the website’s new responsive design, they say mobile users are presented the same desktop content, but it’s adapted for smaller screens such as iPhones, iPads and Android devices.

Another enhancement is the addition of a so-called “Livewire” for an up-to-date view of online top searches, public meetings and press releases.

It is common in the debate over gay marriage for proponents to argue that consenting adults should be free to do as they please.  Both social liberals and libertarians insist that, since there are no victims, government has no right to prohibit gay marriage.  This laissez-faire approach to legislation, however, defies credibility as a governing principle.

Local reaction to President Obama’s support for gay marriage included such brilliant analysis as, “What does it matter to a straight person if a couple of gay people marry????  How does that hurt anyone?”  And “marriage should be an individual right if that is one’s choice…”

The Economist has argued, “Why should one set of loving, consenting adults be denied a right that other such adults have and which, if exercised, will do no damage to anyone else?”  Similarly, John Stossel has reasoned, “If they redefine marriage to include gays, that doesn’t diminish my marriage.”  (emphasis original)

The Libertarian Party’s platform states that “Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships.”  Embracing  the “harm principle” (or “non-aggression principle”), they hold that all individuals “have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.”

In this age of moral relativism, this political philosophy greatly appeals to those who see advocates of traditional marriage as religious zealots.  As one recent commentator put it, this “is about every American citizen being able to live the life that seems best to them…I do not insist others live the way I do, think the way I do, marry whom I want them to marry.  I confess I don’t understand the impulse that drives others to exert such control over another’s choices that do not concern me.”

But all political principles, including the “harm principle,” are a reflection of a moral decision.  This libertarian philosophy is a product of one’s moral decision to value personal liberty to the exclusion of anything else.  To reach this conclusion, for instance, one has to make the moral decision that liberty is to be valued more than, say, the welfare state, or that all men have equal rights, or that man’s rights are more important than animals.

Additionally, most who embrace the “harm principle” to advocate for gay marriage would shudder at its application to all other laws.  Most libertarians have made no attempt to hide their belief that laws prohibiting prostitution, drugs and trafficking in human organs run afoul this “harm principle.”  Those are hardly, however, the only laws that would be invalidated under this principle.

For starters, the vast majority of traffic laws—from speeding, stop signs, seat belt laws, driver’s license and insurance requirements, and drunk driving—prohibit behavior that doesn’t, in and of itself, harm other people.  So to with laws regarding truancy, public intoxication, curfews, etc.

Turning to “social issues,” restrictions on euthanasia, gambling, animal cruelty, and obscenity over the public airwaves would be invalidated under the “harm principle.”  Cannibalism, in this case the eating but not the killing of humans, would also be legalized.

Unfettered access to pornography, even child pornography, would also be legalized.  Doubtless most libertarians would see the need to prohibit the filming of kiddie porn, but possession of it after the fact can hardly be said to be directly harming anyone.

Other sexual perversions—including homosexuality, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, sado-masochism, public nudity, and necrophilia—would be allowed.  Though most libertarians would agree that there needs to be some minimum age requirement to protect children, their philosophy would cast doubt on most cases of statutory rape and student-teacher sex.

In short, society has always had a legitimate interest in prohibiting self-evident violations of the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”—an objective moral order out of which both vice crimes (inherently dehumanizing  behavior) and natural rights spring.  In contrast, the “harm principle” is simply a license for immorality operating under the guise of “liberty.”

It is disingenuous, therefore, for gay marriage activists to hide behind an empty slogan that they themselves would fear to apply elsewhere because of their moral convictions.  In the end, they believe it should be legal for no other reason than that they find it morally acceptable.  By the same token, they should not begrudge the majority of voters who believe the opposite.

By Franky Carrillo

Texas executed an innocent man in 1989. That is the stunning conclusion of Los Tocayos Carlos, a groundbreaking article published Monday in The Columbia Human Rights Law Review. As Los Tocayos Carlos meticulously documents, Carlos De Luna was wrongfully convicted and executed for a crime he did not commit.

The news shook me to my core. It could have been me.

I was wrongfully convicted when I was 16 years old and served 20 years in prison before proving my innocence. That mistake took two decades from me; but it took Carlos De Luna’s life.

As I’ve read about the tragic story of Carlos’ death, I’m struck by the parallels between our two lives. Carlos and I could have been brothers — we come from similar backgrounds and we were both caught up in a criminal justice system that seemed stacked against us as poor young men. But the similarities go deeper.

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By Beth Gunston

A few months ago I set a new personal goal: get into nature at least once a week. It really didn’t matter what I ended up doing as long as it took me outdoors – hike, trail run, rock climb, wildlife watch, camp, picnic, paddle, soak, swim, sunbathe, backpack, photograph wildflowers…You get the idea.

And what a grand idea it was! Not only have I enjoyed doing all of those activities, but I’ve also gotten to explore Californian parks that I previously knew little about, if at all.

My guess is that you have a story similar to mine – a love for California’s vast and varied open spaces and all that they have to offer. After all, it’s hard to live in such a beautiful state and not get out and enjoy its natural features in one form or another.

And now, here’s the bad news: many of these treasured open spaces may not be accessible much longer.

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By Amanda Gullings

In 2010, 71 percent of California’s jail population were those offenders who were unsentenced and awaiting resolution of their cases. This figure not only exceeds the pretrial detainee national average, but also represents a major shift away from the traditional use of jails where inmates are detained as a form of punishment. However, many of these pretrial detainees are not being held because they have been determined to be a danger to society or represent a flight risk. Rather, they remain in jail because they cannot afford to post bail.  

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By Lisa Schiff

“The War on Kids,” a recently re-promoted 2009 documentary about our educational system, ends with a horrifying scene of a young girl, no more than 7 or 8, screaming and crying as three law enforcement officers pull her up from a chair in a school office and handcuff her, oblivious to the girl’s hysterical sobbing. That one scene captures the primary message of the filmmaker: that our public school system is a fundamentally flawed institution designed not to educate, but to exert control over students who are a priori viewed by that system as criminals.

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Shawn Peebles, which was all of 5’2,” had been at his home on Third Street playing video games and cooking fish sticks. (I can’t say much for his taste in snacks!) Travis Webb, a gangly youngin’ who had held a job at McDonalds for two years, had a girlfriend but still shopped for toilet paper at his Mom’s house hanging with Peebles when a knock came on the door…with the game blasting, the prosecution attempted to convince the jury that the delay in opening the door was not because the fish stick cooking, video playing “kids” didn’t hear the knock…but, the DA supposed, something more sinister.

The demolition of the structure currently at the site has also been approved but both it and the site plan are subject to certain requirements which include additional “nods” regarding traffic patterning and landscaping of the lot.