By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com
My congressman stood on the correct side in a dispute between the Texas attorney general and the president-elect of the United States.
How do I know that? I asked his office directly and someone in his Plano office told me that Rep. Van Taylor was one of the Republican lawmakers who did not join a lawsuit filed by Ken Paxton, who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
I applauded Taylor for keeping his distance from the litigious idiocy launched by our state’s attorney general.
Then I got a letter with Taylor’s signature at the end of it.
I’ll be candid. I read the letter and it sounded like a boiler-plate response that he sends out to anyone who asks his staff a question. He thanked me for “taking the time to contact me and share your thoughts regarding the 2020 Presidential Election. Our representative democracy works best with active participation from the people and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me.”
There you go. The rest of it reads like a statement that congressmen and women provide to deal with issues of the day.
Taylor again offered his congratulations to President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Taylor said he and his wife, Anne, are extending their “prayers and well wishes to both the Biden and Harris families as they prepare for this momentous undertaking.”
I want to thank the congressman — who was just re-elected to his second term from the Third Congressional District — for the letter. If only he had spoken to me a bit more directly.
Rep. Taylor noted the letter that former President George H.W. Bush left for the man who defeated him in 1992, President Bill Clinton. Bush told the new president: “Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.” Taylor added, “We must follow this example of putting political differences aside and upholding the integrity of the Constitution instead of the typical Washington dysfunction that has so many Texans frustrated.”
A final point: There is not a damn thing “typical” about the way Donald John Trump has conducted himself in the weeks since losing the election.