Civil rights commission splits on Bush report News
Civil rights commission splits on Bush report

[JURIST] The US Commission on Civil Rights failed Friday to approve a controversial report [PDF] on the rights record of the Bush administration when the 8 member panel split 4-4 on the vote to adopt the draft document. The Commission came under heavy scrutiny when it published a draft of the unapproved report, heavily critical of the Bush administration, just weeks prior to the election. A motion presented during the October meeting to remove the report from the Commission's website was voted down by the body. The report stated that the Bush administration had not "defined a clear agenda nor made civil rights a priority." JURIST's Paper Chase has background. The Palm Beach Post has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.