Category Archives: State news

political news, State news

Local control? Who needs it in Fort Worth?

dan patrick

What am I missing here?

Don’t statewide elected officials in Texas — all of whom are Republicans — tell us they prefer to let locals control their affairs? Get a load of this tidbit.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants Fort Worth Independent School District Superintendent Kent Scribner to resign. He’s demanding it, by golly.

Why? Scribner has drafted guidelines regarding transgender students in the district.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/09/patrick-wants-fort-worth-superintendent-resign/

According to Patrick, Scribner has gone off the rails with this transgender matter.

I believe I’ll set aside the correctness or wrongness of Scribner’s view on dealing with transgender students. My issue here is whether the state’s lieutenant governor should pressure a local school superintendent chosen by a duly elected local school board to quit his job.

Lt. Gov. Patrick should butt out. How a major Texas school district decides to run its affairs is solely the province of its elected trustees.

The Texas Tribune reports: “‘After less than a year as superintendent, Dr. Scribner has lost his focus and thereby his ability to lead the Fort Worth ISD,’ Patrick said in a statement. ‘He has placed his own personal political agenda ahead of the more than 86,000 students attending 146 schools in the district by unilaterally adopting ‘Transgender Student Guidelines.'”

Interesting, don’t you think?

Patrick said the superintendent has “placed his own personal political agenda ahead” of the needs of students. Isn’t that what Patrick is doing now, by demanding that a local school superintendent step down?

This issue should be decided by the constituents in Fort Worth who elect the school board, which in turn appoints the district’s chief executive officer.

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s primary job is to preside over the Texas Senate and to guide legislation through the Legislature’s upper chamber. It should not include telling local officials how to conduct their own business.

 

national news, political news, State news

‘We let bygones be bygones’

Perry_presser_photoTT_jpg_800x1000_q100

I generally like the craft of politics and, yes, I like some of those who practice the craft.

One of the aspects of politics, though, is the ease with which politicians can set aside amazingly hurtful comments they make about each other to pursue newfound friendships and alliances.

Take the case of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump.

I would have bet real American money that the two men truly detested each other after hearing Perry skin Trump alive with comments about the real estate mogul being a “cancer on conservatism.”

Not long after that, Perry dropped out of the GOP primary race and then endorsed the formerly “cancerous” Trump’s bid for president.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/06/perry-defends-trump-endorsement/

According to the Texas Tribune: “We are competitors, and so the rhetoric is in the heat of battle. It’s in the chaos of a presidential bid,” Perry said, also noting his criticism of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign. “If no one doesn’t understand that, then they don’t understand how our process of elections work. We compete, and then we let bygones by bygones.”

I guess Perry deserves credit for being a good sport. So, too, does Trump for accepting the Perry endorsement.

The things they say to and about each other, though, do seem to cross some imaginary boundary of decency.

I look back at the 2000 contest for the U.S. Senate seat in New York. The Democratic Party nominee for that seat was none other than first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. I considered it astonishing then that Clinton would want to serve in the legislative body with senators who actually voted to convict her husband of charges brought against him in that impeachment.

It also astounded me, after she won the seat, that Clinton managed to form constructive working relationships with her Republican Senate colleagues, who, you’ll recall, voted to convict President Clinton of the charges brought against him.

I didn’t think she’d run for the Senate seat. Nor did I believe she could ever trust her GOP colleagues as far as she could throw them.

I’m left to ask myself: Could I ever let “bygones be bygones” and throw in with former adversaries?

Umm. No.

 

State news

Texas getting special attention these days

texas

Manny Fernandez has written a fascinating essay for the New York Times about Texas.

He seems to like living here. Indeed, he is not alone in being attracted to Texas, as the state’s population is growing rapidly. We aren’t likely to catch California any time soon, but the number of Texans is now approaching 30 million.

Here’s the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/us/what-makes-texas-texas.html

As I read it Sunday, though, I was struck by something left out.

Fernandez talks extensively about how some Texans take their Texanhood so very seriously, even to the point of putting Texas soil under the bassinet of a newborn baby to ensure the baby’s Texas roots.

He didn’t mention how an anti-littering slogan coined in the 1980s has been morphed into a kind of macho mantra.

“Don’t Mess With Texas” came into being after the Texas General Land Office decided to make the state more conscious of litter and how it soils the landscape. (Note: The picture on the link does have a “Don’t Mess With Texas” sign in it.)

We can thank then-Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, on whose watch the slogan came to life.

Since then the slogan has come to mean something quite different in many people’s eyes. It’s come to mean that you don’t “mess with” the state at any level. Don’t disrespect us. Don’t insult us. Don’t make fun of us.

Don’t do this or that … or else we Texans will make you pay for it.

I have no particular problem with the Don’t Mess With Texas slogan as long as it is being used for its intended purpose, which is to admonish litterers to avoid tossing their empty beer cans or their used-up containers of Skoal onto our highways.

I wonder, though, if the Land Office ever envisioned it being perverted in the manner that it has over the years.

It’s also become, in addition to a kind of battle cry for Texans, grist for those who seek to belittle the state.

Sure, Texas is a special place. We’ve lived here for 32 years. We call it home — even if the right-wing politics here at times makes me a squirm just a little.

I encourage you to read the New York Times link. It spoke clearly to me as a Texas transplant who has learned about the state’s peculiar obsession with itself.

 

legal news, State news

How are they going to find that kind of dough?

920x920

Stories like this pique my interest partly because I once was part of this community, and also because I wonder about the nature of the judgment handed down by the court.

Here’s the summary: A Jefferson County, Texas, judge has ordered two former Beaumont Independent School District administrators to pay the district $4 million apiece in funds they admitted to embezzling.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Ex-Beaumont-ISD-officials-ordered-to-pay-back-4-7397631.php

Devin McCraney once served as BISD’s chief financial officer and Sharrika Allison was the district’s comptroller. I don’t know either of them, as they came on board long after my wife and I left Beaumont in January 1995.

District Judge Milton Shuffield ordered the two of them to pay $4 million each, plus another $93,000 in interest.

Here’s what makes me scratch my head.

I worked for nearly 37 years in daily journalism. I made a decent salary during a good bit of my working life. My combined salary over the course of my entire career never even came close to a fraction of the amount of money assessed by the judge in this embezzlement case.

How does the judge expect these individuals to pay back the money?

Did they pocket the money somewhere in a secret place? Will they be able to just hand it over once they uncover it?

I guess I should note that both of them received prison sentences, which took them out of the work force for several years.

I don’t know what these individuals earned while working for BISD, which has fallen on extremely hard times in recent years. The state education agency swooped in and took over day-to-day management of the district. Its former superintendent, Carroll Thomas, “retired” after helping steer the district into the tumult that resulted in the state takeover.

Now a district judge has ordered these two former administrators to repay the district millions of dollars.

I’m a layman watching this story from afar. How does that work?

 

political news, State news

Perry portrait unveiled … sans glasses

7C2A9423_jpg_800x1000_q100

Let’s talk about something truly insignificant for a moment.

I’ve had a busy day doing one of my part-time jobs. I am a bit worn out, so I thought I’d share my view on former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s portrait unveiling at the State Capitol in Austin.

He’s not wearing the glasses he donned prior to running for president the second time.

No, his portrait depicts him barefaced. No specs.

That’s all right with me. I came to know the governor without the corrective lenses. I always thought he donned the glasses prior to running for president for effect, anyway. They were intended to make him look smarter.

Actually, he didn’t need them for that purpose.

It’s not that I believe the former governor is a dummy. I don’t … and he isn’t.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/06/perry-portrait-unveiled-and-burning-question-answer/’

As a glasses-wearing individual myself, I am kind of partial to eye wear on politicians.

Now for a quick aside: I’ve worn specs since the eighth grade. I want to salute Mr. King, my science teacher at Parkrose Heights Junior High School in suburban Portland, Ore., for noticing I was squinting one day while watching a film strip.

The bell rang for the next class and he took me aside and asked, “Can you read what’s on the blackboard?” I responded incredulously, “Well, no-o-o-o,” as if he thought I should be able to read it.

He sent me home that day with a note to my parents.

Looking back on it many decades later I am convinced I was born blind.

I got the glasses. I threw up in the car on the way home from the optometrist. Why? Seeing the leaves blowing in the breeze made me sick to my stomach.

The glasses might have made me look smarter, too. They didn’t make me a better student.

Back to the former governor …

I’m glad the portrait shows him without the eyeglasses. I made his acquaintance in 1990 when he campaigned for Texas agriculture commissioner without them.

He did pretty well over the years in Texas — politically speaking — without dressing up his face.

national news, political news, State news

Political alliances are shifting … rapidly

1 Comment

DonaldAndRick_jpg_800x1000_q100

Rick Perry once called Donald J. Trump a “cancer on conservatism.”

He then backed fellow Texan Ted Cruz, who — before bowing out of the Republican presidential campaign this past week — called Trump a “pathological liar.”

Now the former Texas governor has endorsed Trump.

I guess the “cancer” has been cured.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/05/perry-endorses-trump-president/

According to the Texas Tribune, Perry then offered up the obvious: “‘He is not a perfect man,’ Perry told (CNN). ‘But what I do believe is that he loves this country and he will surround himself with capable, experienced people and he will listen to them.'”

There you go. Yesterday’s cancer becomes today’s panacea.

This is part of what makes politics such a maddening thing to witness.

Opponents are capable of saying the most horrific things about each other. Then, when opportunity knocks, they bury hatchets — and not in each other’s skulls — and make nice as if nothing ever happened.

That’s what Perry seems to have done here. He also told CNN that he “wouldn’t say ‘no'” to Trump if the reality TV celebrity/real estate mogul/presumptive GOP presidential nominee offers a spot on the ticket this fall.

For his part, Trump now says he’s going to stick with a true-blue Republican as his running mate. He wants someone with political experience. He’s also said something about selecting someone with legislative experience.

Former Gov. Perry is a real Republican. He’s got loads of political know-how, although he has been unable to take the success he enjoyed in Texas beyond the state’s borders. The legislative background is a bit sparse, as he didn’t serve all that long in the Texas Legislature before aspiring to statewide office.

It appears, to me at least, that his willingness to endorse Trump after tearing the bark off of him before bowing out of the race himself, that he’s putting party loyalty first.

As the Tribune reports: “Trump, Perry told CNN, ‘is one of the most talented people who has ever run for the president I have ever seen.'”

Trump might have been a “cancer,” but he’s got talent.

Go figure.

 

national news, political news, State news

Bushes 41 and 43 to remain silent

4143bush-2016_jpg_800x1000_q100

At one level this bit of news isn’t much of a surprise.

At another level, though, it’s still a big deal.

Two former Republican presidents — George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — are going to keep their thoughts to themselves regarding the upcoming presidential campaign.

They have no plans to endorse the presumptive GOP nominee Donald J. Trump.

This is more or less in line with what these two men have pledged to do since leaving office. Bush 41 left the White House in 1993 and took, in effect, a vow of political silence. Bush 43 made his exit in 2009 and more or less did the same thing. Neither of them has spoken much about public policy issues or engaged fully in discussions about them.

Both men stepped back into the arena briefly this election cycle to campaign for Jeb Bush. It didn’t work for the younger Bush, who dropped out several months ago.

Why is this a big deal? Why does it matter?

To my mind, it matters because the name “Bush” exemplifies traditional Republican politics. For both men now to say they won’t publicly state their support for — or endorse — Trump speaks volumes.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/bush-41-43-have-no-plans-endorse-trump/

Their silence deprives Trump of a statement of support from two former presidents who between them served 12 years in the nation’s highest office.

The elder Bush, as I’ve said before, entered the White House as arguably the single most qualified man ever to assume the presidency. The younger Bush took office in 2001 and just nine months later was thrust into the role of wartime president when the terrorists flew those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What these men think about the state of the current campaign matters.

Indeed, the elder Bush in the past has thrown his support publicly behind GOP nominees. That includes one-time rival Bob Dole in 1996. He, of course, backed George W. in 2000 and 2004, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

This year? He’s going to remain mum.

The Bush men’s silence in 2016 perhaps means more than either of them is going to acknowledge.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Now, Sen. Cruz, get to work on behalf of Texas

04bruniWeb-1462323117067-master768

I’m not sad to see U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz bow out of the Republican Party presidential primary contest.

He got shellacked Tuesday in Indiana, which would have been his last chance at derailing Donald J. Trump’s march to the GOP nomination.

As New York Times columnist Frank Bruni notes, the Cruz Missile likely will make another run for the presidency down the road. He’ll now “rest in peevishness,” Bruni writes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/opinion/ted-cruzs-bitter-end.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0

Here’s a thought for Cruz to consider, though, as he licks his wounds and ponders the future.

He ought to simply go back to work in the U.S. Senate and start governing on behalf of those who sent him to Washington in the first place.

Cruz might not be wired to actually legislate. He ran against the institution in which he has served since January 2013. He has burned a bridge or three among his colleagues. He called himself an “outsider” despite working from the “inside” the legislative branch of government.

The state has some issues that need federal attention. Cruz pulls down 175 grand annually to represent the state. Taxpayers aren’t paying his salary to grandstand and promote his next search for higher political office.

The coastline needs protection against hurricanes. We need to invest in alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar; surely, Sen. Cruz is aware of the abundant quantities of both of those commodities out here on the High Plains of his state. Our highway infrastructure needs attention. Oh, yes, we need to shore up our border against illegal immigrants.

This is going to require Sen. Cruz to try a new tactic. He’s going to have to learn how to legislate and actually govern.

Cruz has had his shot at stardom. He fell short.

However, he’s got a pretty good, well-paying day job awaiting him on Capitol Hill.

Get back to work, Sen. Cruz.

***

PS: Here’s an interesting Texas Tribune analysis on how Cruz might seek to resume his actual job.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/03/how-does-ted-cruz-return-senate/

 

environmental news, local news, State news

Why not dress up our highway interchange?

Texas Freeway road art - Lone Star State on abutment wall with landscaping June 2014 I-10 pic

My wife and I — along with our dog Toby — have just returned from a week on the road.

Our travels took us south, then west, then north and back home. Along the way we zoomed through three substantial cities: Tucson and Phoenix, Ariz., and Albuquerque.

Tucson and Albuquerque are about the same size, roughly 550,000 or so residents; Phoenix is home to more than 1.5 million folks.

What do they have in common, other than fairly picturesque landscapes?

They all have highways that are attractive to the eye. Moreover, they are attractive to those of us who are just passing through. They leave us with a smattering of good vibes about the city and the care the leaders there take in dressing up their highways.

Whenever we see such things on our travels around the country, the same question keeps popping back into my pointed head: Why can’t Amarillo dress up its lone major freeway interchange?

One of these days — maybe soon — I intend to get to the bottom of this dilemma.

The Texas Department of Transportation rebuilt the Interstate 40/27 interchange just a few years ago. It reversed the over-under ramps of both highways. It built new structures and then painted the concrete in Palo Duro Canyon colors, with green trim. It painted those Amarillo Chamber of Commerce boots on the side of the overpasses.

Then it decided to plant a few native trees.

That’s it.

TxDOT hasn’t done much to spruce up the appearance of the interchange. I visited once some years ago with the TxDOT officials who oversaw the landscaping of the interchange and he told me — in response to a question about the then-shabby appearance of the interchange — that the state was allowing “native flora” to take over. My reaction was, well, laughter.

The state can do much better than it has done with this highway “beautification” effort.

If other cities and states can make their public rights-of-way attractive to visitors passing through, why not Amarillo?

 

political news, State news

Legislature bears some burden for tuition hikes

HIGHER-EDUCATION

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is angry with the state’s public higher education system.

He said the colleges and universities have increased tuition rates too rapidly in recent years. He said they have to stop doing so and pledges to “limit” tuition increases.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/04/26/lt-gov-patrick-excoriates-universities-tuition-inc/

Well, hot-diggedy, Lt. Gov. Patrick. How might you do that?

Here’s an idea: How about ensuring the Texas Senate — over which you preside — provides substantial state support for Texas’ public higher education system? That might enable college presidents and university system chancellors and regents from having to implement tuition increases.

The Texas Panhandle’s state senator, Republican Kel Seliger of Amarillo, chairs the Senate Higher Education Committee. Here’s a chance for the lieutenant governor to team up with one of his lesser favorite lawmakers to do something for the students — and their parents.

There once was a time when public higher education was a tremendous bargain for Texas students and their parents. One of our sons attended a great public institution, Sam Houston State University, after he graduated from high school in 1991. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and the quality of his education at “Sam” helped him pursue a successful career in his field of study.

I do not recall what we paid in tuition in the early 1990s. I do know it was a lot less than what students are paying today.

The political environment in Austin has shifted over the years since then. The state ran into financial difficulty. Lawmakers scaled back spending in all quarters. Public education took a huge hit.

Colleges and universities sought to keep carrying out their mission, which is to provide a first-class education for students. They can’t do it for free.

I don’t like seeing huge tuition increases any more than the next guy. However, these institutions don’t operate in a vacuum. They need help from their financial backers, which includes the lawmakers who govern the state’s public higher education systems.

Lt. Gov. Patrick is now part of the problem. Sure, there are many legislative solutions to be found, as Patrick has noted. One of them ought to be to pony up some more money.

Education remains a high priority in Texas, correct?