Category Archives: State news

local news, political news, State news

O’Rourke, Cruz settle it: three debates … bring it!

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Beto O’Rourke pitched initially a plan to stage six debates with the man he wants to beat in this year’s midterm election to the U.S. Senate seat in Texas.

Ted Cruz balked. Ah, but the candidates have settled on three debates. One in Dallas, one in Houston and one in San Antonio.

This is good news for Texans who are interested in this contest. O’Rourke is the Democratic challenger to the Republican Cruz. I’ve already laid out my preference: I want O’Rourke to win.

But the notion that the men will debate three times is good for the process. The Dallas event will focus on domestic policy; same for the Houston debate; the San Antonio debate is going to focus half on domestic, half on foreign policy.

Debates are an important element in helping voters decide for whom to vote. Polling in this race suggests a still-large body of undecided Texans, although I remain a bit dubious that those who say they’re undecided are actually telling pollsters the truth.

But I’m glad that O’Rourke and Cruz will share a stage. They’ll get to answer questions, perhaps will get to pepper each other with questions. They’ll get to demonstrate their mental acuity and quickness on their feet.

It well might be that six debates would have been too much. Voters can — and often do — grow weary of seeing and hearing too much from politicians.

I’ll settle for three debates.

Bring it, gentlemen!

local news, national news, State news

McCartt no longer stands alone as one who defies natural law

I long have held up a former Amarillo mayor as the model for defying certain natural laws. How? By being everywhere at once.

That’s what former Mayor Debra McCartt managed to do during her time as the city’s chief elected official. McCartt, the city’s first female mayor, seemingly was able to attend multiple events simultaneously while representing City Hall, advocating for the city, rooting for interests being promoted by municipal management and the City Council.

Debra McCartt might have to move over, making a place for another politician.

He is Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. O’Rourke is challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who is running for re-election to his second term. Indeed, it seems as though Cruz has been in the Senate forever, even though he’s just a rookie lawmaker.

O’Rourke has been on TV shows left and right: Stephen Colbert; Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon. He’s been interviewed by MSNBC, CNN and various broadcast network talking heads.

Has Beto cloned himself? Well, no. He hasn’t. It just seems as though he has.

I get that Cruz has been tied to his desk in Washington. For that matter, O’Rourke should be, too. Except that the House of Representatives, where O’Rourke serves, has taken some time off; the Senate, though, was kept on the job by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who canceled the Senate’s annual summer recess.

O’Rourke’s defying of these natural laws — visiting all 254 Texas counties  and appearing on every TV talk show under the sun — might explain partly why he is making this U.S. Senate contest so damn competitive.

I still hold former Mayor McCartt in high regard for the ability to be everywhere at once that she demonstrated while advocating for the city. However, she no longer stands alone as the public official who manages to be everywhere at the same time.

State news

Democrats looking for an actual victory in Texas

A “moral victory” in Texas won’t be good enough for Democrats who now are officially licking their chops at the prospect of knocking off a first-term Republican U.S. senator.

Beto O’Rourke is challenging Ted Cruz. The fact that Texas’s U.S. Senate seat is part of the national discussion on the eve of the midterm election is stunning enough all by itself.

However, O’Rourke and his supporters aren’t likely to settle for coming close to Cruz. They think now they have a chance to actually knock the Cruz Missile off his launch pad.

Poll after public opinion poll is saying essentially the same thing: O’Rourke has closed the gap to a dead heat, enabling the challenger to chip away at what was supposed to be an insurmountable lead in this most Republican of states.

Republicans believe the race is still Cruz’s to lose. I’m not sure about that. I cannot predict that O’Rourke will win. I am reading the same polls that others are reading. I am not involved in the campaign. I don’t know what the O’Rourke troops are doing in the field.

I’m just astonished that O’Rourke is continuing the strategy he has employed since the beginning of the fall campaign: He is traveling to rural counties, talking to voters one on one. He continues to visit counties where Cruz figures to do well. He is taking the fight straight to the incumbent.

As for Cruz, he has gone negative. O’Rourke hasn’t yet gone there. I don’t yet know what his plans are as Election Day draws near. Hey, I’m just a spectator out here, watching this race unfold right along with the rest of the state.

My gut tells me that a “moral victory” won’t be enough. If, after all this campaigning has ended, and Beto O’Rourke falls short of Ted Cruz’s vote total — even if it’s by just a handful of ballots — I fully expect there to be profound disappointment.

“Wait’ll next time” won’t be good enough to assuage the wounds.

O’Rourke wants it. Bigly.

State news

Yes, they were ‘heroes’ at The Alamo

What’s going on with the Texas State Board of Education?

The 15-member elected board had decided that the men who fought and died at The Alamo shouldn’t be called “heroic” in Texas textbooks that tells the story of the 1836 struggle.

Then the SBOE backed off. The men who died were heroes after all. Politicians from Gov. Greg Abbott on down had objected to the eliminating of the “heroic” description of the fight.

The Texas Tribune reported: The board has been streamlining curriculum standards for social studies for the past several months, with the aim of cutting back on the instructional time for teachers and allowing them to go into depth in their courses. The workgroup’s recommendations, submitted to the State Board of Education in April by a volunteer working group of area experts, called the term “value charged” and recommended its removal. They also struck out a reference to a letter Col. William B. Travis wrote just before the siege titled “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World.”

I’m not a Texas native. My wife, sons and I got here as soon as we could. I grew up in Oregon and studied The Alamo battle back in the day, in junior high school and later in high school. By the time we moved to Texas in 1984 I was well aware of the “heroic” stature that the men had achieved when they fought against a huge military force of Mexican soldiers who laid siege to the mission.

C’mon, SBOE! Don’t mess with what we know to be true. Those men fought heroically. They died as heroes. Didn’t the Texians who took the fight to Mexico’s armed forces rally to the battle cry “Remember the Alamo”?

SBOE backs off

Part of the change seems to have something to do with the short shrift textbooks give to civil rights leaders. As the Tribune reports: Those in support of the workgroup’s initial proposal argued that using language like “heroic” for the defenders of the Alamo and minimizing the contribution of civil rights leaders whitewashes the history of Texas. “The curriculum standards that guide what we learn in our public school classrooms don’t teach enough and don’t teach the truth,” said Lamontria Edwards, a student at Paul Quinn College in Dallas.

Fair point. However, let’s be sure our texts also teach children of the heroism of our civil rights movement in addition to teaching them of the heroes who died at The Alamo.

State news

‘Likability’ to determine who wins this race?

Who would have thought that the winner of the next big contest for the U.S. Senate seat from Texas would hinge on the candidates’ “likability”?

Democrat Beto O’Rourke is challenging Republican incumbent Ted Cruz in 2018. Cruz was supposed to win re-election in a walk. He represents Texas in the U.S. Senate, one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states.

Something happened, though, on Cruz’s re-election waltz. He ran into a guy who seems to be throwing conventional wisdom out the window. O’Rourke is conducting an essentially positive campaign to date, speaking in vague terms about ridding Washington of the hyper-negativity that borders on hostility.

Meanwhile, Cruz is firing off barbs criticizing O’Rourke over his occasional potty mouth as a younger man.

He is managing to make O’Rourke eminently more “likable.”

Cruz stormed into the Senate six years and made an immediate national name for himself. He became one of those rare freshman senators who could be seen on TV constantly, at times seemingly in several locations all at once. He seemed to defy the laws of physics by being everywhere at the same time. What drove Cruz? Personal ambition. Therein lies what I believe has been Ted Cruz’s primary reason for serving in the Senate.

He ran for president of the United States halfway through his first term in the Senate, which by itself isn’t all that unusual: Barack Obama did the same thing, too.

But Cruz comes off as harsh, self-centered and blinded by personal ambition. Indeed, Donald Trump may have spoken something approaching the truth when he said during the 2016 presidential campaign that “no one likes” Cruz in the Senate.

What was supposed to be a cakewalk to re-election for the GOP incumbent senator has turned into a journey fraught with peril.

It all might be decided on likability.

State news

Gov. Abbott, have you lost your mind?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has given me a reason to vote against his re-election. I mean, doggone it, anyhow!

Abbott wants to unplug the red-light cameras that have been deployed in cities throughout Texas. The cameras are meant to deter motorists from breaking the law when they run through stop lights and, thus, endanger other motorists and pedestrians.

This is a deal-breaker, Gov. Abbott. Have you gone around the bend?

Cities charge violators $75 when they run through intersections. The Legislature established strict rules on how cities should spend the revenue they collect: They pay the vendors who operate the equipment and then dedicate the revenue specifically to improve traffic enforcement and other matters related to that critical issue.

But then the governor says the cameras aren’t working as they should. He wants the state to pre-empt local communities’ desire to use technology to help police officers enforce traffic laws. Some cities have taken the cameras down. Others, such as Amarillo, where I used to live and work, have stayed the course. Good for Amarillo!

“Red light cameras have been like the white whale for many conservatives who have tried to ban them in Texas by arguing they harm individual liberty or are unconstitutional,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Eliminating red light cameras is a low cost way to appeal to conservative legislators whom the governor will need to pass his agenda.”

Harm individual liberty? We don’t allow motorists to drink and drive. We require drivers and passengers to wear seat restraints. Do those rules “harm individual liberty”? I wish the professor was kidding. I also wish Gov. Abbott is kidding when he says the state needs to unplug the cameras.

Sadly, they aren’t.

national news, State news

GOP seeks to bolster Sen. Cruz

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a first-term Republican, was expected to — um — cruise to re-election in a heavily Republican state such as Texas.

Then something happened. Democratic voters nominated a young man named Beto O’Rourke, a congressman from El Paso. O’Rourke has visited all 254 Texas counties. He has appeared before small gatherings and large crowds. He tries to carry a positive message forward.

Then those polls started showing some movement toward O’Rourke. The race between them is now too close to call. O’Rourke has the momentum, or so many observers believe.

Republicans now reportedly are looking for ways to salvage Cruz’s re-election campaign. In Texas? Are you serious?

I guess so.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick went to Washington to ask Donald Trump to campaign for Cruz. The president agreed. He’s now planning a blow-out rally sometime next month in the “biggest stadium we can find.”

As Politico reports: Trump’s rally is just the most public display of a Republican cavalry rushing to the senator’s aid. Cruz remains a favorite to win another term, and some senior GOP figures insist the concern is overblown. Yet the party — which has had a fraught relationship with the anti-establishment Texas senator over the years — is suddenly leaving little to chance. Behind the scenes, the White House, party leaders and a collection of conservative outside groups have begun plotting out a full-fledged effort to bolster Cruz.

The battle has been joined. Democrats think they have the momentum on their side. O’Rourke has become a high-demand “get” for TV talk shows. He’s raising a more money than Cruz, although I remain dubious as to whether more cash translates to more votes. I hope it does, but one cannot always equate the the factors.

Yep. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

national news, State news

How will Cruz explain his change of heart toward POTUS?

Whenever the two major candidates for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Ted Cruz meet in a joint appearance, I am hoping whoever questions them will ask Cruz a critical question about his relationship with Donald John Trump Sr.

If it were me, I would ask him: Senator, you once called Donald Trump a pathological liar; you called him amoral; you called him gutless coward. How is it that you now welcome him to Texas to campaign for you? How do you justify this remarkable change in attitude toward a man you seemed to loathe when you both were campaigning for the GOP nomination in 2016?

If given a chance for a follow up, I might ask him to explain the president’s loathsome comments about Cruz: You took them personally, senator. Do you no longer feel the intense anger you expressed in the moment?

I also am thinking that Cruz’s opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, is likely to ask the incumbent a lot of questions along those lines himself.

OK, I know what many of you are thinking. This isn’t new. Political foes for many years have buried the hatchet. Team of rivals, anyone?

To wit:

  • Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigned against each other in 2008; they said some incredibly mean things about each other. Obama got nominated, then elected and selected Clinton to be secretary of state.
  • Obama also ran hard and aggressively against Sen. Joe Biden in 2008 and then named Biden as his vice presidential running mate.
  • Sens. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson didn’t care for each other when they ran for the Democratic nomination in 1960. Then they teamed up and won the election.

That was then. The here and now presents another set of questions.

Trump disparaged Cruz’s father, suggesting he might have been complicit in JFK’s murder; he ridiculed the senator’s wife, Heidi. He called Cruz “Lyin’ Ted.”

Sen. Cruz’s response to all of that was intense and seemingly visceral anger — and justifiably so.

But … the men have let bygones be bygones. Yes?

I am left to wonder what it takes for a politician to tell us what they really think. I also have to wonder if Cruz’s outrage was feigned or was it for real.

As for the president, well, I don’t believe a single thing that flies out of his mouth.

local news, political news, State news

You go, Rep. Four Price!

It would be presumptuous of me in the extreme to assume that state Rep. Four Price of Amarillo read a recent blog post of mine and then decided to run for speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

Whatever, my friend has joined a growing gaggle of politicians seeking to succeed Speaker Joe Straus as the Man of the House.

I applaud him for taking the plunge.

Price joins four fellow Republicans and a Democrat in the speaker’s race.

I’ve already stated my bias. Price is my friend and, thus, my admiration for his legislative skill is tainted somewhat by my personal affection for him. Still, the young man has cast a large shadow over the 150-member Texas House since he joined that body in 2011.

“Having successfully worked for the last four sessions with my colleagues from across our state to pass major legislation and focus on issues of importance to all Texans, I am eager to seek this leadership position in the Texas House of Representatives,” he said in a statement. “Looking towards the future, I truly believe the Texas House will play a leading role in making the decisions that keep Texas on the path to prosperity.”

I am quite certain Price knows what becoming speaker would mean to his role as a “part-time citizen legislator.” It means he would become nothing of the sort. House speakers essentially become full-timers, on call 24/7 to the media, to fellow pols, to constituents who live far beyond their legislative districts.

I find it impossible to believe that Price has failed to build sufficient political alliances within the House to make a serious run for the speakership.

With all the talk we keep hearing about the shifting power balance in Texas, as rural districts such as the one Price represents in the Texas Panhandle lose their clout, a Four Price speakership could produce a boon to the often-overlooked region way up yonder at the top of Texas.

So, good hunting, Rep. Price as you scour your colleagues for the support you’ll need as you seek to run the show in the Texas House.

political news, State news

Flag burning becomes Senate issue … oh, boy!

I kind of expected this to happen. Flag burning has been introduced as an issue in the race for the U.S. Senate in Texas.  Except that it’s been distorted to something that bears no resemblance to what was actually said.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican incumbent, has accused Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke of favoring the burning of the Stars and Stripes as a form of political protest.

Oops! O’Rourke didn’t say such a thing, as the Texas Tribune has reported.

It seems that O’Rourke was asked at a town hall meeting to discuss political protest and, in particular, the landmark 1989 Texas v. Johnson U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared flag burning to be a legitimate form of political protest.

O’Rourke gave a lengthy, long-winded answer to a question, but didn’t actually endorse flag burning. The Cruz campaign cherry-picked a portion of O’Rourke’s answer and linked it to flag burning, rather than to the broader issues that O’Rourke addressed in his town hall response.

Read the Tribune’s explanation here.

I fear this is the kind of thing we can expect in this campaign, which appears to be much closer than the Cruz Missile and the Texas Republican Party ever expected it to become. O’Rourke — a congressman from El Paso — has drawn essentially even with Cruz. He is campaigning in all 254 Texas counties, even in those rural counties where he figures to get clobbered by Republican voters.

As for whether he supports flag burning as a form of political protest, I think I can discern O’Rourke’s view, which well might mirror my own: I understand the act to be a legitimate form of political protest, but just don’t do it in front of me if you expect me to be swayed to whatever point you’re trying to make.