State Sen. Kel Seliger won’t like these next few words, but I feel this need to get something off my chest.

I’m beginning to wonder if the Amarillo Republican is in the wrong political party. In Texas. At this time.

The lawmaker from Amarillo has served in the Texas Senate since 2004. He’s been a reliable Republican vote among the GOP senators who comprise the upper chamber’s majority. However, looking ahead to what might transpire in the mid-term elections this fall, I’m starting to wonder about Seliger’s place in an increasingly partisan and bitter legislative body.

For one thing, Seliger was effectively re-elected this spring when he beat back a challenge from former Midland Mayor Mike Canon. Canon is a nice enough guy. He’s actually quite intelligent. But when you turned on the microphone and asked him to speak about the issues of the day, he spoke almost exclusively in tea party clichés, sound bites and talking points.

Canon came within a couple of percentage points of knocking Seliger off in the GOP primary in March. Seliger has no Democratic opponent this fall, so he’ll take his seat next year.

Now comes the lieutenant governor’s race featuring Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick and Democratic Sen. Leticia Van de Putte. Patrick isn’t quite a shoo-in to win the race, but he’s a heavy favorite in this Republican state.

Seliger makes no attempt to hide his disdain for Patrick or the people who are backing him. So if Patrick wins the election, he’ll preside over a Senate that contains at least one lawmaker from his own party — Seliger — who can’t stand him.

What’s more, there well might be other right-wing demagogues like Patrick who’ll win their races this fall, which tells you plenty about where the Texas Republican Party has gone in the Era of Rick Perry.

That two-thirds rule — which requires at least 21 Senate votes to bring a bill to a vote on the floor — would be trashed by a Lt. Gov. Patrick. Seliger long has supported that rule. Patrick also has made it known that he dislikes giving committee chairmanships to Democrats, something Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has done over the years. Some of Seliger’s better friends in the Senate happen to be Democrats.

What do you suppose will happen when Patrick ventures to the Panhandle to campaign for the office he seeks? Will he ask Seliger to join him? Would the Amarillo lawmaker accept the invitation to introduce Patrick to an adoring crowd? Would the senator even be welcome at such an event?

The state Republican Party is being overrun by individuals who do not fit the Seliger model of good-government Republicanism, in my humble view.

No, I don’t believe Seliger is a closet Democrat. I know him to be one of those “establishment Republicans” who believes the key to legislating successfully is joining hands with Democrats whenever possible. The folks who are now running his Republican Party — and that includes Dan Patrick — think quite differently.

As former state Rep. Warren Chisum of Pampa said when he left the Democratic Party to become a Republican many years ago, Kel Seliger never left his party — the party has left him.

At this moment, words are failing me.

I just caught up with a story out of Norfolk, Neb., which held a Fourth of July parade to — I reckon — commemorate the founding of this glorious nation of ours.

The parade included a “float” that utterly defies any sense of decency and respect toward the office of the presidency.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/06/obama-outhouse-float_n_5561568.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

It depicts an outhouse with the words “Obama presidential library.”

In typical cowardly fashion, there was no identification of the sponsor of this exhibit. At this moment, no one seems to know who was responsible for the despicable display.

The presence of this exhibit upset residents who saw it. Some have written to the mayor’s office, to the chamber of commerce. They have called the display racist in nature and have declared themselves ashamed of their town. They are embarrassed that the exhibit would dishonor the office in such a tasteless manner.

I share their disgust.

It’s apparently not the first such exhibit to show up to protest the policies of President Barack Obama. The Huffington Post reported: “The presidential library outhouse comparison has become somewhat of a conservative meme in recent years. A similar structure was on display at Montana’s state Republican convention in 2012. And last fall, an outhouse with a ‘presidential library’ sign drew criticism in a small New Mexico town.”

Then there is this response from someone defending the display. “Rick Konopasek, a member of the Norfolk parade committee, defended the float, comparing it to a political cartoon and noting that multiple parade judges awarded it an ‘honorable mention,'” the Post reported.

I prefer to believe that political cartoons have their place on opinion pages of newspapers or in magazines. A disgraceful exhibit such this has no place on a public street at an event meant to honor the nation’s founding.

I’ll now await the comments from those who consider this to be an appropriate expression of disagreement.

Don’t misunderstand me here. I am not that worked up over a change in the way Texas motor vehicles will be marked as being properly inspected.

Beginning next March, the state won’t require motorists to have a sticker slapped on their windshields to show police officers that the vehicle’s been inspected.

The change appears to have some folks a bit nervous. Why? I have no clue.

The idea, as I understand it, is to save the state some dough, a couple million bucks a year. I guess that’s the cost of printing the stickers that go on our windshields.

Some individuals have interpreted the change as meaning the state won’t require the inspections. Wrong.

We’ll still be required to have mechanics look for safety defects in our vehicles before we purchase auto registration stickers that will continue to be displayed on our windshields.

But as with most change, some of us get a bit jumpy about it.

One lawmaker told my pal Enrique Rangel, writing for the Amarillo Globe-News, that he voted against the legislation creating the change because it was “so overreaching.” Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, then told Rangel that the bill was approved with so little debate he’d forgotten about it until Rangel brought it up to him.

I have no idea what he means.

Well, the sticker is gone. The inspection remains. We’ll just have to get used to it, as we usually do whenever change is forced upon us.