Category Archives: State news

political news, State news

House shines with glimmer of hope

There’s the slightest glimmer of hope coming from the Texas State Capitol Building after the House of Representatives selected a new speaker of the lower legislative chamber.

Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, will take the gavel and lead the House for the next legislative session that began this week.

Why the hope? Well, Burrows is an ally of Rep, Dade Phelan of Beaumont, who angered the MAGA crowd with his handling of (a) the impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and (b) key legislative initiatives favored by Gov. Greg Abbott.

That suggests to me that Burrows might be more, um, moderate than the right-wingers of his Republican Party would prefer. Burrows, for example, is not slamming the door on selecting legislative Democrats to chair House committees. He said in December he prefers for the entire House to decide on those chairmanships, not just the speaker. Hmm, that sounds a tiny bit promising.

Burrows does favor Abbott’s school voucher notion, so he won’t scuttle that initiative.

Back to the chairmanship matter. It’s important to realize that the Legislature does contain members of both major parties. And that they represent Texans of all political stripes, principles and beliefs. I am one Texan who does not want to see the Legislature do the bidding of those who favor issues to which I am fundamentally opposed.

Besides, any legislator who can incur the wrath of super right-wing lobbyist Michael Quinn Sullivan — which Burrows has done — is OK in my book.,

local news, political news, State news

Abortion to ‘challenge’ Texas Legislature?

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The headline atop the front page of the Dallas Morning News screamed out that the new Texas Legislature faces many “challenges” as it prepares to get to work on our behalf for the next five months.

One of them surely is going to be abortion and whether legislators are intent on banning all abortive procedures, all of ’em, making women, spouses and docs criminals.

Newly sworn in Rep. Brent Money, R-Greenville, says categorically that Texas must ban all abortion, citing what he said is “God’s creation” being sacred to merit legislation by mere mortal human beings. He appeared this morning on WFAA-TV’s “Inside Politics” program.

I will disagree with the gentleman. He doesn’t seem to take into account what happens to a child who is born with debilitating deformities. Who cannot care for herself or himself. Whose birth puts Mama’s health — and life — in jeopardy.

I offer those caveats as a pro-life Texas resident myself. I consider myself pro-life, however, I do not believe in legislating from afar whether a woman can take command of her own body or whether she must surrender her reproductive rights because some lawmaker in Austin forces her to do so.

Rep. Money is taking the seat once held by another right-wing extremist, Bryan Slaton, who was drummed out of the House because he got a female legislative staffer drunk as a skunk before having sex with her.

I am going out on a limb here, but I do not believe most Texans adhere to Money’s view that we need to ban all abortion, period.

There in could lie Texas lawmakers’ huge “challenge” as they prepare to convene their next session this week.

May the force of common sense and compassion be with all of them.

State news

Texas politics: work in progress

I get asked fairly frequently how I like living in Texas, given that I am not a native Texan, but one who has lived here for most of my life.

The question usually is steeped in politics, in that the state has gone through a dramatic transformation over the past 40 or so years from being strongly Democratic to even stronger Republican.

My answer seeks to split the difference. “My wife and I carved out a wonderful life in Texas when we moved here in 1984,” I usually say. “Our sons came of age here, I had a wonderful career in journalism, and we got to travel,” I often add.

Oh, but what about the wacky political climate? the questioner might ask. “It hasn’t affected me directly,” I would say.

The state of politics in Texas at this moment clearly isn’t what I would prefer. The Republican stranglehold on every elected statewide office is a grim reminder — to me, at least — that progressive politics is being pushed aside.

I get asked about the state’s grotesque anti-abortion law. No one in my immediate family at this moment is a candidate for that kind of decision. I would dread having to deal with such a family crisis were one to arise, but at this time the issue remains a purely political matter.

I am a sort of spectator these days as the state grapples with how to strengthen the GOP vise-grip on public policy. I am able to comment on these matters using this blog. I grow frustrated at times believing that no one in power takes my critiques seriously. I’ll keep using this forum of mine to pound away when the needs arise.

Therefore, I continue to enjoy my life in Texas. We moved here nearly 41 years ago. I am about to turn 75. That makes me a Texan, even though I cannot plaster a “Native Texan” bumper sticker on my pickup.

But … I do own a truck. That has to count for something.

State news

Dade Phelan becomes a casualty

Dade Phelan became speaker of the Texas House of Representatives at what could be argued as the worst time possible … if you’re a moderate Republican.

Phelan this past weekend backed out of his bid for a third term as speaker, apparently counting the votes among his GOP caucus and realizing he was toast.

It’s a shame for Texas Republicans, for the state in general and for the cause of good government.

Phelan a Republican from Beaumont, fought the MAGA cultists who now are claiming a victory in the fight to continue Texas’s headlong lurch to the right. I don’t know who will succeed Phelan as speaker; I should really care about it … but I don’t.

I do know that whoever it is will continue the MAGA agenda aimed at discriminating against gay and transgender Texans. The next speaker no doubt will continue to push for strengthening Texas’s already harsh ban on abortions. And, yes, there will be border security issues to discuss and to enact.

Phelan’s worst sin appears to be his insistence that the “will of the House” work its way toward impeaching Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The MAGA goons called that a betrayal of their agenda. Not that it mattered, as Paxton was cleared of alleged misconduct by a Texas Senate that wanted to keep the fire-breather in office.

I am sorry to see Dade Phelan surrender to the MAGA crowd. He served with honor as speaker. I cannot really blame him, though, for turning his back on a battle he couldn’t possibly win in this polarized and divisive climate.

national news, State news

C’mon back, candidates!

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Every election cycle for as long as I can remember, I issue the same call to the candidates for president of the United States.

Come on back to Texas and campaign in person, tell us to our faces, that you want our votes!

Why do they avoid the state? Well, we’re not a “battleground” location for the major-party candidates for POTUS. Democrats have all but given up on us, while Republicans take us for granted.

Let’s see. How is that changing? Well, Vice President Kamala Harris’s entry into the campaign has fired up Democratic loyalists across land …. including in Texas!

Recent history suggests that we well could become a battleground in 2024. I know we’ve said that before, only to be disappointed.

Donald Trump won Texas’s electoral votes in 2020 by just a little more than 5%. In 2016, Trump’s margin was 9%. Mitt Romney carried the state with a 15% majority in 2012 and John McCain won in 2008 with 12%. Do you see a pattern? If not, I’ll tell you that the GOP margin has shrunk over the past three election cycles.

Joe Biden pulled out of the contest believing his re-election chances had sunk to near zero., In stepped the vice president. She has raised hundreds of millions of campaign dollars in just two weeks! She is firing up the Democratic base! Thus, it appears to me that the candidates would not waste their time by visiting us in North Texas during this election season.

Look, I like politics. I like retail politics, when candidates have to look voters in the eye and tell us what they intend to do if we elect them.

I realize I am likely piddling into the wind on this request, but I’ll make it anyway.

Texas provides a huge pool of votes. My preference would be for VP Harris to win most of them. Based on what might be transpiring, there seems to be a shot — I’ll measure its probability later — that Kamala Harris could break through this barrier.

State news

On the border: more of the same

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A young man I know who is a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper has just returned from another deployment on Texas’s southern border.

He said he noticed that “it’s all the same down there. The same ol’ same ol’.” Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending troopers to the border to assist US Border Patrol officers and local police in rounding up illegal immigrants.

“Nothing is going to change until after the election if Donald Trump wins,” my DPS friend told me. Then he said two things are bound to happen. Trump’s get-tough policies will return and “those who now are trying to get into this country won’t want to come here” if Trump is elected.

He said DPS then won’t need to go to the border to lend a hand.

Hmm. Interesting, I thought to myself. I should have said that Abbott won’t send DPS troopers to the border because he won’t want to stick it in Trump’s ear the way he does with President Biden. I didn’t tell him so.

I guess it doesn’t matter to many Texans that Biden did issue an executive order that shuts down the border when crossings exceed a certain amount. Does that constitute an “open border policy”?

Not even close.

local news, State news

Ted Cruz: unlikable and mean

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I will go to my grave — hopefully not anytime soon — wondering for all I can muster how Ted Cruz continues to hang onto his seat in the U.S. Senate.

I cannot think of more unlikable and mean-spirited senator than Rafael Edward Cruz. He has cast his beady eyes on a bigger prize since the day he declared his Senate candidacy in 2012. He was elected that year and ran immediately for the presidency in 2016.

He damn near lost his Senate seat in 2018 to Beto O’Rourke. Now he’s running again, this time against another Texas congressman, Colin Allred of Dallas.

Allred says the polls have the two of them tied. Maybe so. Maybe not. Polling I see shows Cruz with a slim lead.

What in the world has this guy done for Texas? What legislation has he authored that brings tangible benefit to the state? I cannot think of a single piece of legislation that has Cruz’s name stamped on it.

I can, however, recite a couple of notable instances where he embarrassed himself and the state. How about the time he filibustered in favor of a government shutdown, reading Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” from the Senate floor?

My favorite moment, though, occurred when Cruz sought to jet off to Cancun with his family in February 2021 while Texans were freezing to death in that killer winter storm. Someone caught him on the lam to Mexico. He returned … and then blamed his daughter for talking him into taking the family for a vacation.

Oh, how I want Allred to win this seat. Allred vows to work with Republicans. I intend to hold him to that pledge if he manages to win. Cruz, though, is lost forever to the cause of bipartisanship.

I’ll say it again: Good government requires compromise and Ted Cruz does not know to work in that environment.

local news, political news, State news

Craziness on the ballot

The political craziness that has infected the Texas Republican Party comes to a head tomorrow.

Several GOP politicians are facing runoffs as a result of challenges within their party. One of them happens to be a very powerful pol: Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont, who’s facing a MAGA challenger in the form of David Covey, a first-time candidate.

I am pulling for Phelan to hold onto his state House seat, even though it might not be worth keeping, particularly if House Republicans decide to boot him out of the speaker’s chair for the 2025 Texas Legislature.

It’s all part of the MAGA movement’s declaration of war against Republicans who have the temerity to stand up against their party leadership and work Democrats to actually govern.

Speaker Phelan shouldn’t have to pay the price for doing what is the right thing.

local news, political news, State news

Cruz seeks to rebrand himself … yeah, right

Rafael Edward Cruz, aka Ted Cruz, is trying to pull off the biggest rebranding effort in U.S. Senate history.

The Republican firebrand now calls himself a “bipartisan” member of the Senate, citing his working relationship and friendship (if you dare believe that) with leading Senate Democrats.

It’s a joke, I’m tellin’ ya. Except that I ain’t laughing at it … except perhaps in derision.

Cruz is in for another tough re-election fight, this time against Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas, who — according to many leading polls — is in a dead heat with the two-term senator. Cruz was first elected in 2012, then won a bitter re-election battle in 2018 against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke by about 3 percentage points.

Ted Cruz angles for a bipartisan rebrand | The Texas Tribune

Allred, serving his second term in the House, has established a bipartisan reputation in the lower chamber and says Cruz’s effort is a bald-faced sham. Allred told the Texas Tribune: “I don’t think Ted Cruz is fooling anybody,” Allred said. “He spent 12 years being the most divisive — and proudly so — partisan warrior in the United States. And I think it’s kind of laughable actually that at this point, when he’s in a close race, that he wants to now stress, ‘Oh, actually I have been working in a bipartisan way.’”

He’s nothing like the bipartisan statesman he is portraying himself to be. Recall how he filibustered in the Senate in trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. He has been a front-row election denier, questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election that gave us Joe Biden as president. He has been virtually silent about the 1/6 assault on our government and has endorsed the 45th POTUS’s bid to win back the White House after losing to President Biden in 2020.

According to the Tribune: “When I first arrived in the Senate 12 years ago, there was such a thing as moderate Democrats. They existed. You could work them,” Cruz said at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Texas Policy Summit last month. “There aren’t any left. The Democrats, they hate Trump so much their brains have melted, and what’s happened is they have gone crazy off the edge to the left.”

Now he wants us to believe he’s willing to work with Democrats whose “brains have melted”?

Hah!

local news, political news, State news

House speaker is no ‘liberal’ … period!

I need to clear the air on a Texas politician I do not know personally, but who is someone I trust implicitly to run a state legislative chamber with conscience and competence.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, has become a prime target of the Club for Growth, a national right-wing political action committee that aims to spend $4 million in ads to defeat the legislator who is in the midst of a runoff election.

The Texas Tribune reports: “From failing to support school choice to allowing radical liberal Democrats to chair committees, Speaker Phelan is a certified RINO with a long record, and he will be held accountable by the voters in the runoff,” said David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth’s Super PAC.

Phelan is nothing of the sort that Club for Growth describes. The speaker let his Republican colleagues vote their conscience — and their constituents’ conscience — in opposing Gov. Greg Abbott’s dream of siphoning off public education money to a voucher plan that would enable parents to enroll their children in private schools.

Why the opposition from Republican legislators? Because they represent House districts that depend mightily on the strength of the public school systems that serve their constituents.

Why is that worthy of the attacks that Club for Growth and other hardline right-wingers plan to hurl at the speaker? I don’t see it.

Club for Growth wades into Texas primary battles | The Texas Tribune

As the Tribune reports: Over two regular legislative sessions, the House under Phelan has passed some of the most conservative legislation in the chamber’s history, including allowing permitless carry of handguns and a near-total ban on abortion. Phelan has come under particular criticism from many within his party for the House’s failure last year to approve a school voucher bill favored by Abbott.

Dade Phelan clearly considers himself to be a conservative. I guess he is not conservative enough to suit the one-issue zealots who think it’s OK to gut our public school system.