Category Archives: State news

political news, State news

More evidence of Texas Democrats’ demolition

17swartzWeb-master675

Mimi Swartz’s essay in the New York Times lends support to something I wrote just the other day.https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/05/texas-democrats-already-are-demolished/

It involves the pitiful state of the Texas Democratic Party.

My friend Tom Mechler was just re-elected chairman of the state Republican Party and then called for the demolition of the state’s Democrats. My response was that the Democratic Party already has been “demolished” in Texas.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/05/texas-democrats-already-are-demolished/

Now comes Swartz, writing for the NY Times saying that Texas is so reliably Republican that we won’t be “relevant” in the upcoming presidential election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/opinion/texas-red-but-not-relevant.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

She mentioned how it used to be in Washington, with Texans of both parties commanding actual respect among their congressional colleagues. Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn? How about Dick Armey? Swartz said, correctly, that they “got things done.”

I’m glad she didn’t mentioned the looniest of the looney birds now representing Texas in Congress — Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, the conveyer of lies about President Obama’s birth and assorted other nutty pronouncements.

My favorite paragraph in her essay talks about what has become of the state’s former pull in D.C.:

“That kind of gravitas has quit the scene. Texas boasts legions of engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers, artists and energy executives who enjoy global reputations, but back home pridefully ignorant pygmies run the political show. One example: When our senior senator, John Cornyn, was running for re-election in 2014, the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board asked him for his view of a huge coastal storm-surge-protection project in the Houston-Galveston area known as the Ike Dike. His answer: ‘I don’t even know what that is.’”

That’s pretty bad, yes?

What’s worse is that the Texas Democratic Party remains clueless on how to reshape the state’s political landscape.

 

political news, State news

Cruz’s omission spoke volumes at GOP gathering

tedcruz_0

Texas Republicans gathering at their state convention in Dallas over the weekend waited to hear from one of their golden boys.

He went to the podium and delivered a typically fiery speech about how the Texas GOP should stand firm behind its “conservative principles.”

The message came from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who until just about three weeks ago, had contended that he would be the party’s presidential nominee.

He won’t make it.

That prize is now left for Donald J. Trump to grasp.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/ted-cruz-chooses/

So, the question becomes: Will the vanquished junior senator from Texas endorse the presumptive GOP nominee for president?

Excuse me while I laugh … out loud.

As Erica Grieder writes for Texas Monthly, it ain’t gonna happen.

Cruz’s speech to the convention delegates contained a lot of references to those conservative principles. He didn’t mention Trump’s name a single, solitary time.

No mention of the nominee, the guy who’s going to hoist the party banner and traipse across the land proclaiming himself to be the party messenger.

Are you as not surprised as I am that Cruz wouldn’t mention Trump?

I ran into Randall County Judge Ernie Houdashell just before he shoved off for the GOP convention. He and I exchanged a few friendly words in the supermarket parking lot. He mentioned Cruz’s name in passing. The judge — as reliable and devoted a Republican as you’ll ever see — made no mention of Trump.

I’ll have to ask Houdashell the next time I see him to ask him straight away: Are you going to “support” the party nominee? I’ll try to avoid asking whether he’d vote for Trump this fall, given that he’s entitled to cast whatever vote he wants in private.

Sure, Trump is gathering his share of public endorsements in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott is on board, as is former Gov. Rick Perry.

I haven’t heard much from Sen. John Cornyn or from former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on whether they’re going to back Trump.

Cruz, of course, has been gored terribly by his party’s nominee. Trump’s “Lyin’ Ted” label surely hurt the senator, as did Trump’s hideous reference to Heidi Cruz, the wife of his former GOP presidential foe.

So, he didn’t mention Trump’s name at the GOP convention podium. Cruz’s silence spoke volumes.

As Grieder writes in her blog about Cruz: “He recognized Trump’s political appeal earlier on, in other words, and responded with an eye toward his strategic goals rather than his values or principles. He deserves criticism for that. But so too do many of his critics in the Republican Party — all too many of whom are now, after nine more months of this lurid spectacle, making an even more cynical bargain, and one that Cruz, clearly enough, is unwilling to accept. It’s like he said. You learn a lot about a candidate over the course of a campaign.”

 

local news, political news, State news

Seliger faces challenges from within the GOP

kel

I just read a generally friendly article about Texas state Sen. Kel Seliger.

The Odessa American piece profiles Seliger, who represents one of the most sprawling Senate districts in Texas.

The very size of the district helps illustrate one of the critical issues facing any West Texas lawmaker as he or she seeks to represent the varied interests of the region.

I have known Seliger for as long as I’ve lived in the Texas Panhandle. That totals 21 years. He was Amarillo’s mayor when my wife and I arrived here and I’ve watched him operate up close for that entire time, first at City Hall and for the past dozen years as a state legislator.

I consider him a friend as well.

That all said, I believe he has done a good job representing Senate District 31 since he was first elected in 2004.

He’s got a couple of potential issues with which he must contend, though, as he seeks to continue that service to the district and the state.

One of them is geography. The other is ideology.

First, the geographical issue.

Texas legislators keep redrawing legislative and congressional districts after every census. The 2011 Legislature produced a District 31 that runs from the top of the Panhandle all the way to the Permian Basin. It takes about six hours to drive from one end of the district to another — and that’s at 75 mph most of the way!

Seliger hails from the Panhandle, but he must be dialed in to the concerns of the other end of the district. As the Odessa American article suggests, Seliger does a good job tending to the needs of the southern end of District 31.

Former House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland credits Seliger with keeping his radar fixed to the needs of the entire district.

http://www.com/news/government/state_government/article_4b20d618-19f4-11e6-8023-43690aa58ae1.html#.VziY-jWRXfc.facebook

Seliger has his share of friends and political allies throughout Senate District 31. Those who know Seliger understand the ease with which he is able to engage his constituents.

The Republican lawmaker, though, faces another potential problem. It’s the widening ideological gap within the Republican Party. Consider his 2014 re-election campaign.

His primary opponent that year was former Midland Mayor Mike Canon, who was recruited by arch-conservative political operatives to challenge Seliger because, they contended, the incumbent wasn’t “conservative enough.”

Canon is a nice fellow and actually quite smart. But I witnessed something about him during a Panhandle PBS-sponsored candidate forum in the spring of 2014. He answered direct questions with sound bites, clichĂ©s and talking points. Seliger’s answers to the same questions were full of nuance, detail and a keen understanding of the complicated process of legislating.

Seliger’s knowledge of the Texas Senate and how it works was barely enough to enable him to win the GOP primary that year. He squeaked by a patently inferior candidate. Why is that? Because the West Texas Republican TEA Party “base” got mobilized by the idea of knocking off someone who, in their view, didn’t comport with their notion of a “true conservative.”

He spoke to the Odessa newspaper about that campaign, saying that “Most Republicans are pretty darn conservative.” He calls himself a conservative.

Of the two potential pitfalls awaiting Seliger, I consider ideology to be the greater threat.

He’s managed to spend a lot of time traveling from one end of Senate District 31 to the other and back again, learning the myriad issues that concern its residents.

However, it remains to be seen whether that will be enough to satisfy the intense ideological fervor of those on the extreme right fringe of the Grand Old Party.

 

local news, political news, State news

Texas Democrats already are ‘demolished’

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mechler

I consider Tom Mechler to be a friend. I’ve known him for about a dozen years and we have a nice relationship — even though we disagree politically on just about, oh, every single issue.

Still, I was glad to see the dedicated Panhandle Republican re-elected chairman of the Texas Republican Party this weekend. He survived an attempted coup by a fringe wing of his party that sought to topple him because he’s supposedly too friendly with LGBT elements within his party.

I’m going to take issue with something Mechler said in a statement after his re-election as party chairman had been assured.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/13/mechler-wins-re-election-texas-gop-chairman/

According to the Texas Tribune, Mechler said this in a statement: “Our Party is strongest when we are united and I look forward to working each and every day to keep the RPT the most dominant state party in the country. Today the work begins to demolish the Democrats this November.”

Demolish the Democrats?

You mean, Mr. Chairman, that you’re going to wipe them off the face of the state map?

By my way of thinking, the Texas Democratic Party already is demolished. Good grief, dude. You guys occupy every statewide office there is. Democrats can’t field a credible challenge in any of them.

Has the chairman really considered just how dominant his party is these days?

I’ve long been a supporter of a strong two-party state. Before you accuse me of wanting to see Democrats come back, I assure you that I’ve said the same thing back when Democrats stood over the landscape. I once lived and worked in a Democratic bastion — the Golden Triangle — and I witnessed plenty of political arrogance there.

Texas is a one-party state. There can be no doubt about that.

What the GOP must concern itself with, though, is what is happening at the national level. The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump. Mechler and his fellow Texans cannot control what the probable GOP presidential nominee is going to say as he stumps the nation. If anyone is capable of making Texas competitive this fall it’s Donald J. Trump.

Mechler need not worry about demolishing Texas Democrats. He needs to focus his concern about whether the party’s presidential nominee’s statements about Hispanics and women will breathe life into an opposing party that’s already been given up for dead.

Good luck with that, Mr. Chairman.

 

legal news, State news

No real surprise; Texas high court endorses do-nothing school policy

SCHOOL_FINANCE_TRIAL_TEXAS_50498503

At one level — had I been following this case more closely — I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Texas Supreme Court had ruled the state’s public school funding system to be “constitutional.”

I’ll admit that I haven’t been as avid a follower of this issue as I should have been.

The court ruled this week that the state is doing all it should be doing to finance public education. Never mind that previous courts, previous judges and educators across the state have said the state does far too little to support public education.

Not so, said the state’s highest civil appellate court.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160513-editorial-school-finance-decision-could-spell-disaster-for-texas-education.ece

The Dallas Morning News editorial I’ve attached to this blog post lays it out pretty well. The Texas Supremes have set an amazingly low bar for state public education.

The court has declared in its unanimous ruling that taking care of public schools rests exclusively with the Texas Legislature.

Here is what I do know about the state of public school financing in Texas.

The Legislature has dramatically cut state spending on public schools over the past several sessions. Do the Supreme Court justices now believe the Legislature is going to reverse itself, that it’s going to find more money to distribute equitably among the more than 1,000 independent school districts around the state?

Of course, the political ramifications must be factored in.

Republicans control — by wide margins — both legislative chambers. They also occupy every statewide office in Texas. That includes the nine individuals who comprise the Texas Supreme Court.

Who out there really thinks the justices ever were going to buck the policies set by their GOP brethren in the other two branches of state government?

Here’s part of what the Morning News said: “In refusing to intervene, they’ve placed an enormous responsibility to fix our system of school finance on the shoulders of state lawmakers, the same lawmakers who have refused for decades to do what is needed. As a result, Texas’ 5 million public school children will be the ones who most directly bear the costs of the high court’s refusal to fix a system that it concedes requires ‘transformational, top-to-bottom reforms.'”

The justices have recognized the state’s public education system is broken but they won’t do anything to fix it.

The ball’s back in the Legislature’s court. Again.

Do something, lawmakers, to repair the system you’ve broken.

legal news, national news, State news

Transgender issue taking strange turn

Transgender-Bathroom-600x321

I am trying to understand this issue, but it’s escaping me … so far.

The Obama administration is going to send out a “directive” to public school systems throughout the country advising them against discriminating against “transgender” students.

It won’t have the “force of law,” according to federal officials. It will warn districts that they face being denied federal funds if they fail to comply with the directive.

Check this out:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/obama-administration-to-issue-decree-on-transgender-access-to-school-restrooms/ar-BBsZoch?li=BBnb7Kz

What is giving me so much grief?

It’s the “transgender” issue all by itself.

People who identify  with the opposite sex should be granted access to facilities set aside for the opposite sex, say proponents of transgender rights.

So, if I hear them correctly, a man with all the requisite male body parts can use a woman’s public restroom. Same for a woman who wants to use the men’s restroom.

Simply identifying with the other gender doesn’t require them to dress appropriately, as I understand it. Am I wrong about that?

How do we know who’s truly transgender, therefore, and who, um, isn’t?

Here in Texas, the lieutenant governor weighed in on this matter by ordering the Fort Worth Independent School District superintendent, Kent Scribner, to resign because of guidelines he wrote governing the issue — in that school district.

I’ve stated already that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick overstepped his bounds by meddling in a local issue. Scribner’s employment status should be determined exclusively by the school board that appointed him.

The federal “directive” seems to line up the same way. Have the federal courts ruled on the constitutionality of this matter? If so, then it got past me.

I’m trying to understand which rights are involved here, particularly as it pertains to individuals who haven’t yet been surgically altered to comply with their stated gender identity.

I have no issue, moreover, with those who’ve had the “gender reassignment” surgery and have been re-created into the appropriate gender. The medical procedure, by my way of thinking, removes the transgender confusion.

I’ve stated many times over many years that I don’t understand a lot of things.

This, most assuredly, is one of them.

My head hurts.

local news, national news, political news, State news

‘No’ never really means no for VP hopefuls

Rob Portman Pictures12

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said “no” when NBC News asked him if he’d consider running as Donald J. Trump’s vice-presidential nominee this year.

Does that mean he would refuse to run with Trump if he asks him to do so? Does it mean the Republican will have none of it … ever?

Hardly.

It means only that he intends — at this moment — to seek re-election to the Senate.

How many times have these politicians  said “no” only to change their minds when the phone rings? A zillion?

I’m going to flash back for a moment to a conversation my colleagues and I had in Beaumont with the late, great U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen.

It was 1988. The Democratic senator was running for re-election. He visited us at the Beaumont Enterprise to talk about that campaign. The presidential primary campaign was winding down. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was pondering a VP pick. Bentsen’s name was being kicked around.

So … I asked him: Would you run for vice president if Dukakis asked?

I don’t recall precisely how Sen. Bentsen answered, but I do recall he said “no,” or words to that effect. He said he was focused only on his re-election campaign against Republican nominee U.S. Rep. Beau Boulter of Amarillo.

About a week later, his phone rang. It was Gov. Dukakis. The governor asked Bentsen to run with him on the Democratic ticket. His “no” turned to “yes.”

My memory of that conversation makes it difficult for me to accept a “no” at face value when the subject of running for vice president comes up.

In this election cycle, though, it strikes me as plausible that saying “no” to a presidential nominee as weird and unpredictable as Donald Trump actually might carry more weight.

 

political news, State news

Texas GOP at war with itself

texas-republican

Do you want to see a prime example of how badly fractured the Republican Party has become?

Take a look at the fight for the Texas Republican Party chairmanship.

This is an amazing development.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/challenger-for-texas-gop-chairman-says-incumbent-promotes-disgusting-homosexual-agenda.html

State GOP Chairman Tom Mechler has been accused of promoting a “disgusting homosexual agenda.” The accusation comes from supporters of Jared Woodfill, a Houston GOP activist who’s challenging Mechler for the party chairmanship.

Why is this so amazing?

Well, I happen to know Mechler. He hails from Armstrong County. He’s a Panhandle guy who is as conservative a politician as one can imagine. I consider Mechler to be a friend and, take my word for it, he doesn’t exactly line up with gay-rights activists’ world view.

The Texas GOP had the temerity to allow a gay and lesbian group to set up a booth at the upcoming state Republican convention. Does that constitute a “disgusting homosexual agenda”? I do not believe it does.

What it constitutes is a recognition that Texas comprises a wide array of individuals who have differing orientations.

That’s it.

Mechler is putting some distance between himself and the gay-rights group. According to the Dallas Morning News: “Mechler said he had nothing to do with the decision to allow the group, the Metroplex Republicans, to have a booth at the state GOP convention.”

Just as the national Republican Party is fighting among itself, the Texas GOP is exposing deep fissures within its own ranks.

The ultra-uber conservative wing of the Texas GOP is tossing out the “RINO” epithet at Mechler, who is the farthest thing possible from being a “Republican In Name Only.”

Believe me when I say this: Tom Mechler is a true-blue Republican believer. He’s the real thing.

 

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick renews inappropriate intervention

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Patrick-Scribner

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick hasn’t yet given up his interventionist strategy.

He’s continuing to insist that a local Texas school district superintendent step down because he’s doing something with which the lieutenant governor disagrees.

Patrick is off base.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/10/superintendent-wont-resign-over-transgender-bathro/

The issue is Fort Worth school superintendent Kent Scribner’s decision to allow transgender boys to use girls’ restrooms.

I am going to continue to insist that Patrick’s intervention flouts the traditional Republican philosophy that calls for greater local control  and fewer mandates handed down by the state.

Scribner today refused to quit, as Patrick has demanded. There’s no word yet from the elected school board that selected Scribner to run the school system on what it intends to do.

I’ll take a leap here and presume that Scribner is acting with the blessing of those who hired him.

Does that constitute a reason for the man who presides over the Texas Senate to weigh in on how a local school district should handle an internal administrative matter?

Not by a long shot.

Patrick went to Fort Worth today to say that Scribner broke state law by enacting the transgender policy. OK, so what if he did?

The school board should act independently of whatever the second-ranking state official thinks.

This issue is none of Lt. Gov. Patrick’s business.

 

legal news, media news, political news, State news

Texas AG slams door on transparency

paxton

Ken Paxton’s tenure as Texas attorney general has gotten off to a rocky start.

First, a Collin County grand jury indicted the Republican politician on charges of securities fraud, accusing him of failing to report income he derived from giving investment advice to a friend. The Securities and Exchange Commission followed suit with a complaint of its own.

Bad start, man.

Then the attorney general accepts the resignations of two top aides and agrees to keep paying them. What’s worse in this case, according to the Dallas Morning News, is that the AG isn’t explaining why he’s continuing to pay the ex-staffers.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160509-editorial-ken-paxton-should-answer-our-reporters-questions.ece

The Morning News accuses Paxton of bullying the newspaper’s reporters who keep asking questions about the payments. He’s not willing to explain why he’s using these particular public funds in this manner.

The newspaper has blistered Paxton in an editorial. It demands, correctly in my view, that he hold his office — and himself — accountable for the actions he has taken regarding the resignations of these individuals.

The Morning News asks a pertinent question, noting that state law allows public agencies to grant paid leave when it finds “good cause” to do so. Paxton decided to categorize their departure as paid leave, thus justifying the continued payments to folks who no longer work for the state. The paper asks: What’s the good cause? The attorney general isn’t saying.

The paper offers this bit of advice to the public as it ponders the AG’s behavior: “Voters should take note.”