The vote cast in the U.S. Senate that failed to approve increased background checks on gun buyers illustrates the power of money.

The National Rifle Association opposes the background check expansion. A huge majority of Americans, however, support it; most Democrats support it; most Republicans support it; some polls suggest that even a majority of families with NRA members support it.

But the Senate voted 54-46 in favor of expanding the background checks. However, because of Senate rules, the body needed 60 votes to send the measure to the House of Representatives. Texas’ two Republican senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, were among the 46 “no” votes.

Thus, the bill has been put on ice for the time being.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&

Senators are afraid of NRA, but as Gabrielle Giffords – the former Arizona congresswoman who was shot in the head at a political event in Tucson two years ago – has written, senators’ fear is nothing compared to the terror felt by the children caught in the gunfire in Newtown, Conn.

But the senators’ fear of the NRA apparently has far greater power than their constituents’ desire for them to act on a law that many Americans believe could prevent criminals and the mentally disturbed from purchasing a firearm.

And that is to the senators’ shame.

Rosemary Lehmberg has been prosecuting drunk drivers in Travis County for a full term in office.

Now she finds herself among the ranks of those she has sent to jail. How can she continue in her job? She can’t, as the Austin American-Statesman editorial linked here says.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/arrest-should-end-lehmbergs-career-in-law-enforcem/nXQRg/

Lehmberg is in deep trouble with the law. She was caught driving drunk. Her vehicle reportedly was seen crossing into oncoming traffic. Her political career likely is over, although given what the country has seen with the budding comeback of former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, the end of the Travis County district attorney’s career isn’t exactly a sure thing.

It ought to be.

These matters of judicial integrity mean that those who prosecute people accused of crimes must be absolutely, utterly, completely beyond reproach. Rosemary Lehmberg’s has been damaged beyond repair. Every DUI case she or her office prosecutes from this day forward would be tainted for as long as Lehmberg serves as district attorney.

Public service demands a lot of those who seek to do it. Those who choose to serve the public must give the public the best of everything about them. Driving while under the influence of alcohol is a deal-breaker, especially for a prosecutor.

The second of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing attack is still on the lam. His brother is dead, apparently in what looks like a “suicide by cop” fire fight with police.

Is the younger brother coming in alive? My guess is that he’s going to die, probably quite soon.

Some of my friends and acquaintances don’t want to spend taxpayer money to hold the guy, try him, convict him and then carry out whatever sentence is handed down. I disagree with that strongly.

The authorities need to keep this guy alive to (1) determine whether he actually did the deed, which now appears likely he did, (2) determine whether he had help from other sources not yet known and (3) why in the world would someone described as a “sweetheart,” an honor student and all-round good guy would commit such a heinous act.

Police are combing the area in and around Boston as I write these words. I pray that someone gets to the young man and persuades him to surrender.

My fear, though, is that he’ll act the way almost all madmen do and that police will carry him out feet first from his final hiding place.

A good friend of mine has made a startling observation: April is a terrible month.

He shared it on a Facebook post. My friend noted the following events occurred during the month of April:

Abraham Lincoln was shot to death, Adolf Hitler was born, Franklin Roosevelt died, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the Branch Davidians burned to death in that fire in Waco, the two madmen killed all those people at Columbine High School in Colorado, the Titanic sank and now, the Boston Marathon bombing occurred and we witnessed that terrible explosion in West, Texas.

I can think of one good joyous that occurred during this month: My baby sister was born.

Still, my friend wants to skip April and head straight from Mardi Gras to Memorial Day.

I’m thinking he might be on to something.

U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is getting ants in his pants over the Boston bombing probe.

“Every day that it passes, it gets colder,” McCaul said of the investigation into who detonated the bomb on Monday that killed three people and injured dozens more at the Boston Marathon.

C’mon, Mr. Chairman, you ought to know these things take time.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/294779-lawmaker-fears-bomber-may-flee-country

McCaul is a former federal prosecutor who’s no doubt been involved in some tedious investigations. It’s only been three days since the bombs went off near the marathon’s finish line. Federal, state and local authorities are pleading for public patience as they comb through what looks like a mountain of solid evidence that’s going to lead – maybe soon – to an arrest.

Meanwhile, McCaul and a few others are wringing their hands that the feds haven’t announced an arrest yet.

Perhaps they ought to consider one theory being kicked around by knowledgeable observers, which is that the feds have put eyes on a subject or subjects already, have been tailing them and are just waiting and watching for the right moment to nab them. Just maybe they have someone targeted and perhaps they’re going to spring a big surprise on that individual when he or she least expects it.

New media outlets already have blown their coverage of the bombing aftermath, reporting erroneously that the FBI had made an arrest.

McCaul is afraid the suspect is going to flee the country. OK, well, Osama bin Laden was holed up half a world away once as well. He’s no longer with us.

The bombing perp has committed a terrible crime. I’m willing to give authorities the time they need to complete a thorough investigation before dropping the hammer.

Members of the Texas Legislature often pay their staff members with campaign money, a practice that some ethics gurus say poses a potential conflict of interest.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/18/campaign-funds-prop-lawmakers-capitol-operations/

So reports the Texas Tribune (see link).

I get where the ethicists are coming from.

I’ll say up front that I’ve never given a dime to any candidate for public office in Texas – or in Oregon, for that matter, where I was born and where I came of age. But if I had given money, I would expect a certain kind of return for my investment in the political process.

Supplementing staffers’ salaries with campaign cash isn’t something I’d want my candidate doing with my money. I would rather the candidate use that money to promote issues and enact legislation that I would want enacted, or use it to defeat legislation I don’t want put on the books.

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, dips into his campaign chest regularly. He told the Tribune he wants to attract a top-quality staff. Offering more money is an attractive inducement, he said.

Maybe. But does he stipulate up front that’s one of the areas where he’ll spend contributors’ money when they give it? I’ll bet not.

But here is where the ethics argument begins to stick. Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, does see the campaign cash supplement as a potential conflict of interest by giving lobbyists and their employers added muscle. “It’s just another way in which the lobby runs the Capitol,” said Jillson told the Tribune. “They provide the lawmakers with walking around money and staff support.”

“Ethics in government,” sadly, has become almost something of an oxymoron in Texas. Isn’t there a way to clean up this mess?

I’ve long wondered something about Washington, D.C.’s political dynamic.

How is it that some newly minted senators and House members always manage to make headlines immediately upon their arrival, while others languish in the shadows, hardly ever seen or heard?

Two brand new U.S. senators come to mind:  Republican Ted Cruz of Texas and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Both of these guys are pretty smart young men. However, Cruz has emerged as something of a loudmouth, such as when he accused decorated Vietnam War veterans John Kerry and Chuck Hagel of lacking sufficient regard for the military. Murphy keeps showing up on TV talk shows, saying just recently that President Obama paid too little in taxes in 2012 while campaigning for re-election saying that Republican nominee Mitt Romney, um, paid too little in taxes.

http://thehill.com/video/senate/293827-dem-sen-murphy-obama-paid-too-little-in-taxes

The Senate comprises 100 individuals, all of whom more than likely possess outsized egos. I am acquainted only with one of them: John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. Thus, I don’t know how many of them resent these new guys’ bursting onto the national stage while spending so little time earning their stripes.

Murphy, incidentally, represented Newtown, Conn., in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate this past November. Therefore, he brings instant cache to the debate over gun control, given what happened in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But he seems to be blabbing publicly about all kinds of things, such as Barack Obama’s tax returns.

Meanwhile, other members of both congressional chambers who have just as much to say as the new fellows remain silent.

Isn’t there enough room on the stage for more of these folks?

Gov. Rick Perry says the Texas Legislature’s proposal to ban texting while driving is an attempt to “micromanage the behavior of adults.”

He has vetoed earlier legislation seeking to end the practice. He’ll do so again if the Legislature approves House Bill 63 and Senate Bill 28. I will add here that the legislation has drawn bipartisan support in the House and the Senate. And if Perry were to veto such a bill, there could be enough votes in the Legislature to override the veto, according to the Texas Tribune.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/17/texting-while-driving-ban-hit-house-floor/

Perry’s effort to protect individual rights is an interesting tactic in this regard: The governor, along with other conservatives, are fond of saying that government shouldn’t intrude where it’s not needed – yet they have no difficulty intruding on such things as, say, private sexual conduct or whether a woman should be able to choose to end a pregnancy.

I happen to favor the statewide ban on texting while driving, understanding fully the difficulty the police will have in enforcing it. I would hope the state would impose severe penalties on those caught in the act and even more severe penalties if that activity results in a collision.

But this notion that a texting ban “micromanages” behavior intrigues me.

For many years the state banned homosexual activity. The state actually had the power to burst into someone’s bedroom and arrest anyone engaging in a homosexual act, such as sodomy. The U.S. Supreme Court, ruling on a Texas case, declared in 2003 that the law is unconstitutional. But the Legislature has yet to overturn that statute. Isn’t that micromanagement, governor?

As for abortion, the state is seeking to make that heart-wrenching decision more difficult for women, even though it remains legal under the law. Gov. Perry has no difficulty micromanaging a woman’s conscience.

So, Gov. Perry, where do we draw the line on micromanagement?

State Sen. Dan Patrick wonders why the editorial boards of the New York Times and Washington Post should care about Texas public education testing policy.

What’s more, he wonders why Texans should care what those newspaper editorial boards think about it.

http://www.texasobserver.org/dan-patrick-defends-plan-to-scale-back-testing/

I think I have the answer to the Houston Republican’s rants about them big-city media types. It’s because Texas matters to all Americans. We’re a big and important state. Indeed, our state economy is ranked at or near the top 10 of all the national economies of the world. We have more than 5 million students enrolled in public schools in Texas. The state is home to some of the finest publicly funded universities in the world. I won’t name them, for fear of leaving out someone’s alma mater.

At issue is whether the state should scale back the testing requirements it places on students. House Bill 5 would no longer require certain tests designed to prepare students for college. Some higher education officials are concerned that students graduating from high school will be ill-equipped for the rigors of college curriculum, which the New York Times has noted on its editorial page. It also noted that Gov. Rick Perry is concerned as well.

Patrick, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, wants the Times and the Post editorial boards to butt out.

My question is: Why should they? Texas education policy resonates across the country. We’re big and powerful, right, senator?

Heck, Sen. Patrick should be flattered that we’re getting all this attention.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., is showing some senatorial wisdom.

He is admonishing the media to “chill out” regarding its coverage of the Boston bombing. Good idea.

http://thehill.com/video/senate/294155-dem-senator-press-needs-to-chill-out-in-boston-marathon-coverage

But the freshman Democrat needs also to admonish his congressional colleagues and other so-called “experts” from speculating aloud as to who did the deed. The FBI, along with state and local investigators are trying to piece together some vital information they hope will lead them to the bomber or bombers.

“Let the investigators do their work. Hopefully they have some leads here that are going to get them somewhere, but I don’t think we want the public information to get ahead of the private information,” Murphy said on MSNBC.

Indeed, one of the keys to any criminal investigation is to keep some information private so that the good guys don’t let the bad guys know what they know. Yes, that’s a mouthful. But there must be some privileged information that only law enforcement and the perpetrators can know and the more guarded that information remains the better chance the cops have of linking that information with whoever committed the crime.

Sen. Murphy is right to scold the media. He also ought to counsel his Capitol Hill colleagues to keep their own mouths shut.