Tag Archives: Kel Seliger

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Is Seliger going to endorse?

The thought occurred to me recently that the Texas lieutenant governor Republican runoff has a direct impact on every one of the 31 men and women serving in the Texas Senate.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is running against state Sen. Dan Patrick in the GOP runoff set for May 27. The winner will face state Democratic state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte this fall.

So, here’s the question: Who will Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo endorse in the Republican runoff? Maybe there’s another question: Should the Republican endorse anyone?

Here’s what I know — or think I know — about the principals involved.

Dewhurst and Seliger work well together. Dewhurst, as the presiding officer of the Senate, has given Seliger a key committee chairmanship, Higher Education. Seliger would like to chair the Education Committee when the 2015 Legislature convenes. Dewhurst would seem willing to grant Seliger his wish — if he is re-elected this fall.

Seliger and Patrick have a so-so relationship. I don’t think they’re enemies, although I believe Patrick is being pushed along and counseled by individuals and groups who aren’t particularly friendly to Seliger. Patrick would do away with the two-thirds rule in the Senate that requires two-thirds of senators to support a bill before it goes to a full vote; Seliger has told me he supports the two-thirds rule as it helps build a semblance of bipartisanship in the Senate.

The situation gets sticky, though.

Patrick is now considered a near-prohibitive favorite to win the runoff. A lot of pols and political watchers are writing Dewhurst off. He’s toast, they say. Key staffers have left his office, many of whom have returned to the private sector. It’s getting harder to remember that Dewhurst once was considered a shoo-in to be elected to the U.S. Senate seat when Kay Bailey Hutchison announced her retirement; then along came Ted Cruz to burst that bubble.

To whom should Seliger throw his support? Does he back the guy with whom he’s worked in the Senate, but who now looks like the loser in this runoff? Does he swallow hard and back the other guy with whom he’s had an OK relationship?

Or does he just remain silent until the smoke clears on May 27 and endorse whoever finishes first?

I’m thinking Seliger is going to wait this one out.

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Primary deals tea party a setback in Texas

What’s the big takeaway from the Texas primary election?

It well might be that the tea party, which claims all kinds of strength in Texas, had its head handed to it by voters all across the state.

Good deal.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn brushed aside what had been thought to be a stern test in his Republican primary victory. U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, the Gulf Coast goofball who challenged Cornyn, was trampled by the incumbent.

Other veteran members of Congress survived challenges, including Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon, who was renominated in a three-person race in the GOP primary here at home.

The Texas Legislature primary also saw some setbacks dealt the tea party wing of the GOP. The District 31 primary out here in West Texas produced a win by the incumbent, Republican Kel Seliger of Amarillo — although his margin was far closer than I ever imagined it would be.

A win is a win, however.

Some races still need to be decided. The lieutenant governor’s race is heading to a runoff with state Sen. Dan Patrick in the catbird seat against the incumbent, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Dewhurst has been stung once already, the Senate primary in 2012 that saw him upset by tea party upstart Ted Cruz. He’s been leaning farther and farther to the right ever since. To be honest, he doesn’t seem comfortable in this new role as a newfound ultraconservative and he’s now in danger of losing his party’s nomination to what once was considered the most powerful office in Texas.

The attorney general’s GOP primary featured three guys cut from the same far-right-wing cloth.

The tea party wing of the GOP had hoped for a much bigger night than it got. Instead, it has seen its influence diluted.

All this Republican in-fighting is going to lead the party somewhere, but the destination remains unknown.

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Election provides a couple of stunners

Two big surprises highlighted my watching of the Republican primary elections Tuesday night.

One of them is quite good; the other is potentially troubling.

First, the good.

Nancy Tanner’s victory in the GOP primary for Potter County judge caught me off-guard, but it does demonstrate that competence and experience can win an argument over name identification and relative sizzle.

Tanner is going to take over the county judge’s duties at the first of the year. The GOP voters of the county showed that they appreciate her two decades serving as administrative assistant to Arthur Ware, the current judge who’s stepping down.

Ware had fired Tanner from her job in 2013 for reasons that haven’t been explained fully. Tanner had just made known her intention to run for Ware’s seat after he had announced his impending retirement from public life. Ware had been slowed considerably by a devastating stroke he suffered in 2010, leaving Tanner and other county officials to perform many of the duties attached to the county judge’s office.

It was her experience and intimate knowledge of the nuts and bolts of county government that made Tanner the most qualified of the five candidates running for the office.

Which brings me to the surprise. I was quite sure no one was going to win this primary outright. I figured it would be two of three top-tier candidates — Tanner, former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt and Bill Bandy — competing in a runoff.

Silly me. I underestimated the wisdom of the voters.

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State Sen. Kel Seliger’s hair-raising win over former Midland Mayor Mike Canon provided the other surprise.

Seliger, R-Amarillo, by all rights should have won that race in a walk. He’s smart, articulate, knowledgeable, calm, reasonable, effective, collegial, detail-oriented, friendly … what am I missing? Whatever. He deserved to be re-elected to the Senate District 31 seat he’s filled since 2004.

Then came Canon, who began accusing Seliger of being a closet liberal, which is fightin’ words in this part of the political world. The word among some observers is that Canon was recruited by Michael Quinn Sullivan, a tea party political operative who over the years has developed a nasty relationship with Seliger.

Even given the Texas political climate, I didn’t believe Canon would come as close as he did to defeating Seliger.

There is a potential for concern here. Seliger’s re-election — with no Democrat on the ballot — should not signal a sharp turn to the right for the already-conservative lawmaker. Other elected public officials have reacted badly at times to these challenges from their left or the right by tacking too far in either direction.

My hope is that Seliger is comfortable enough in his own skin to stay the course and keep up the good work he’s already done — such as water planning and funding for public education — on behalf of his constituents.

All in all, where these two races are concerned, the election turned out just fine.

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Hoping for a Seliger blowout

Of all the local races that have piqued my interest, one stands out.

The Texas Senate District 31 contest between incumbent Kel Seliger of Amarillo and former Midland Mayor Mike Canon had the earmarks of a true test of ideas.

It’s turned into an onslaught of half-truths and talking points from one of them, Canon.

Seliger is the Amarillo Republican who’s represented the sprawling Senate district since 2004. He turned into a quick study, learning rapidly the art of legislating, the language of the Senate — and he has shown an affinity for working with Democrats as well as Republicans, a trait that has gone missing among many members of both legislative houses in recent years.

Canon, meanwhile, has conducted a campaign that refers to Seliger as some kind of closet liberal, implying that he is misrepresenting the people of District 31.

I had the pleasure of taking part in a candidate forum sponsored by Panhandle PBS. I asked the men whether they supported term limits for legislators and to explain why or why not.

Canon offered the true-blue talking point that we need fresh ideas and a brisk turnover in the Senate. He owed to serve just two terms before bowing out.

Seliger, meanwhile, offered the nuanced answer I’ve come to expect from him. He said elections have a way of determining whether a legislator is doing his or her job properly and he wouldn’t commit to setting a term limit for himself.

Seliger gave the more honest and courageous answer given the tenor of much of the debate these days.

I just returned from the Dallas Metroplex, where I saw lawn signs scattered all over creation touting the virtues of “conservative Republican” candidates. What in the world differentiates Texas Republicans these days?

Canon is running as a “conservative Republican” candidate for the state Senate. Seliger is running as an accomplished incumbent who knows how the political system works.

My hope Tuesday is that Seliger scores a blowout win.

He’s done the job his constituents have sent him to do.

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It’s starting to fly in Texas Senate District 31

Mike Canon apparently wants to be elected state senator from District 31 so badly that he’s willing to say anything to get the job done.

I thought better of the former Midland mayor until some TV ads began running that question whether the incumbent in that race, Sen. Kel Seliger, is “conservative” enough for West Texas.

He is.

Seliger is running for another term as state senator against someone whose campaign is being funded by what’s called “dark money,” which comes from anonymous donors who aren’t compelled to identify themselves, to hold themselves up for public inspection.

Canon’s latest gambit is to accuse Seliger of “siding with Wendy Davis,” the Democratic candidate for governor, in voting for a pay raise for legislators. Seliger’s response? “There were no such individual votes,” he asserts in a campaign push card.

Canon is seen as a tea party alternative to Seliger, meaning that the incumbent isn’t rabid enough in his support of issues near and dear to the far right wing of the Republican Party. The reality is that Seliger has become a nuanced politician able to understand the complexities of legislating and working with Democrats and Republicans to get something done for the state.

Canon, who is personally an engaging and charming gentleman, has fallen victim to the demagoguery that so often passes for political debate on the far right-wing fringes of his party.

Seliger need not make apologies for the way he has represented the sprawling Senate district.

I’m hoping he beats Canon like a drum next Tuesday. The man loves serving in the Texas Senate. He’s good at it. He needs to stay on the job.

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Cutting-edge aircraft pose problems

Watching the “60 Minutes” report on Sunday about the F-35 fighter being developed by Lockheed-Martin reminded me of a somewhat similar issue close to home.

The report dealt with the difficulties that the contractor is having getting the aircraft ready for deployment. The F-35 is supposed to replace virtually all tactical fighter aircraft used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. The Air Force version is being developed for landing strip takeoffs and landings; the Navy version will be launched by catapult off aircraft carriers; the Marine Corps version will be a vertical takeoff and landing bird.

It’s years behind schedule and more than $150 billion over budget.

http://www.realcleardefense.com/video/2014/02/17/is_the_f-35_worth_it.html

I couldn’t help but think of the troubles that accompanied the development of the V-22 Osprey, the state-of-the-art tiltrotor aircraft that’s being assembled in Amarillo and deployed in combat zones in Afghanistan; the Osprey also saw duty in Iraq.

Bell/Textron built the assembly plant here in the late 1990s, it hired a skilled work force and began assembling the aircraft. It met with difficulty. It crashed on occasion — and in one horrific accident, it crashed with 19 Marines on board, all of whom were killed.

The Marine Corps grounded the aircraft and began examining what went so horribly wrong. It turned out to be an issue with the rotor, which lifts the aircraft off the ground like a helicopter and then rotates forward to fly the bird like a conventional fixed-wing airplane.

Engineers resolved the issue and the Osprey has been performing well on the battlefield.

When the tragedy occurred, then-Amarillo Mayor Kel Seliger noted that all state-of-the-art, leading-edge aircraft have endured problems, controversy, glitches in design and performance. The loss of so many lives in one horrific accident, of course, made the Osprey a larger target than usual.

All this to suggest that it is my hope they fix what’s ailing the F-35 and that it gets into the air. Pilots from all the services set to use the airplane say it will outperform any fighter in use by any nation in the world and will be superior to the super jets being developed by Russia and China.

If only the costs weren’t so overbearing.

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Seliger leaves big footprint down south

Some in the media and in political circles are suggesting a North-South battle in the contest for Texas Senate District 31, an office currently occupied by Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo.

His challenger in the Republican primary — with no Democrats running this year — is Mike Canon, a former mayor of Midland.

Amarillo vs. Midland, North vs. South, Us vs. Them … whatever.

Aside from the fact that Seliger is far more fluent in the nuance of politics and legislating than his opponent — who tends to speak in talking points and clichés — I want to offer this little tidbit that might not be known around the vast Senate district.

Seliger has a single office in Amarillo, on Polk Street downtown. He’s got three of them within spitting distance of each other in the Permian Basin.

Seliger runs an office in Midland, one in Odessa — which is about a 20-minute drive down Interstate 20 — and one in Big Spring. Midland, Ector and Howard counties all can boast offices staffed by living, breathing human beings representing the district’s elected senator.

Is anyone in these parts carping about that disparity? I haven’t heard it.

Seliger’s near-decade in the Senate has demonstrated his attention to the entire district, which is one of the larger Senate districts in the Legislature. It stretches from the Oklahoma border to just past the Permian Basin. It takes half a day — by that I mean 12 hours — to drive from one end of the district and back again.

I trust the media and the political hounds campaigning around the district will take note of Seliger’s presence down south — where he has been anything but an absentee senator.

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What did I learn from candidate forums?

It’s an interesting exercise to try to explain what one can learn from interviewing candidates for public office.

I’ve noted already that election cycles have taught me things about my community — whether it’s back home in Oregon, or in Beaumont — where I learned that Texas politics is a contact sport — or Amarillo, where I’ve lived more than 19 years.

This past week I had the honor of taking part in a Panhandle PBS-sponsored series of candidate forums. I was among six local journalists who asked questions of candidates for the 13th Congressional District, Texas Senate District 31 and Potter County judge.

At some level every single one of the candidates — we talked to 10 of them overall — had something interesting and provocative to say in response to questions from the panel.

My single biggest takeaway from this series of interviews?

I think it’s that I learned that West Texas is not immune to the tumult that’s under way within the Republican Party.

In recent years I had this illusion that West Texas Republicans all spoke essentially with one mind. Wrong.

The campaigns for all three offices are showing considerable difference among the candidates.

The Texas Senate race between Sen. Kel Seliger and former Midland Mayor Mike Canon perhaps provides the most glaring contrast. Seliger is a mainstream Republican officeholder who knows the intricacies of legislating, understands the dynamics that drive the Senate and is fluent in what I guess you could call “Austinspeak.” His answers to our questions were detailed and reflected considerable knowledge gained from the decade he has served in the Senate. Canon also is a smart man. However, he tends to speak in clichés and talking points.

I asked the two of them their thoughts on term limits for legislators: Seliger said voters can discern whether their lawmaker is doing a good job and that there’s no need for term limits; Canon vowed to impose a two-term limit for his own service and said fresh faces mean fresh ideas. Of the two, Seliger provided the more honest answer.

The congressional race pitting incumbent Rep. Mac Thornberry against Elaine Hays and Pam Barlow provided more of the same. Both challengers are seeking to outflank the incumbent on the right and for the life of me I cannot fathom how they can get more to the right than Thornberry. They, too, used talking points to make their case, with Barlow asserting that she is a true-blue “constitutional conservative,” whatever that means.

Even the county judge race provided differences among the five Republicans seeking that office. Nancy Tanner, Debra McCartt, Bill Bandy, Jeff Poindexter and Bill Sumerford all spoke clearly to their points of view. They differed dramatically on several questions, ranging from whether the county should take part in a taxing district aimed at helping downtown Amarillo rebuild itself to whether they could perform a same-sex marriage ceremony were it to become legal in Texas.

You’ll be able to hear for yourself this week. Panhandle PBS is airing the congressional and state Senate forums Thursday night, beginning at 8 p.m. Each runs for 30 minutes. The county judge forum airs Sunday at 4 p.m., and will last an hour.

West Texas Republicans’ political bubble has burst.

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Panhandle trio makes senator jealous?

Texas state Sen. Tommy Williams came to Canyon to take part in an interesting event put on by the Texas Tribune, but offered a comparison that I cannot let pass without some comment.

Williams, a Republican from the Houston area, was on hand at West Texas A&M University to honor state Reps. Four Price and John Smithee and state Sen. Kel Seliger, all Amarillo Republicans. He joked about how jealous he is that the three of them get along so well, unlike his colleagues in Southeast Texas, who — according to Williams — don’t enjoy the same level of legislative collegiality.

The reference drew some laughs in the packed room at the Jack B. Kelley Student Center. The Tribune’s editor in chief and CEO Evan Smith moderated a discussion with the three legislators, grilling them with questions about the state of the state, water planning, infrastructure development, taxes, education … the whole range of issues.

Back to Williams’s brief expression of envy …

Of course Smithee, Price and Seliger get along. They’re all from the same party and they all represent constituencies that look virtually identical. They’re three peas in a pod, triplets, if you prefer.

Williams, however, represents a part of the state where residents — let alone officeholders — cannot agree on the time of day.

I lived for 11 years in Beaumont, which comprises part of Williams’s Senate District 4. I know the region pretty well. It’s contentious, hot-headed, racially and ethnically mixed and politically diverse with a healthy portion of Democrats and Republicans finding reasons to disagree with each other.

For all I know, there might even be some Cajun influence at work there, with typically opinionated Cajuns named Boudreau, Thibideaux and Guidry preferring to disagree rather than work together.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Williams would draw such a comparison between his region of the state and this one. It’s also why I found the upper Texas Gulf Coast such a fascinating place to live and work for more than a decade.

It is a journalist’s version of Heaven on Earth, made that way by the contentiousness that is inbred in the good and colorful folks who live there.

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‘Grudge match’ emerges in Senate District 31

Texas Monthly editor/blogger Paul Burka has spilled the beans on the motive for the race that’s developing in Texas Senate District 31.

Turns out, according to Burka, that former Midland Mayor Mike Canon was recruited to run against Sen. Kel Seliger by Michael Quinn Sullivan, the tea party activist and political operator.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/late-filings

There’s plenty of bad blood between Seliger and Sullivan.

Seliger, indeed, has told me repeatedly over the years that he cannot stomach Sullivan’s hyper-conservative world view and the obstructionism he promotes within the Texas Legislature.

So, there you have it. My concern about Canon appears to be playing out. He’s running to Seliger’s right. I am guessing he’ll tack far to the right of the former Amarillo mayor.

Canon will want to do away with the Senate’s two-thirds rule, the one that requires 21 senators to approve any bill that goes to a vote. He’s likely to push hard to the right on issues such as immigration, state spending on public education and some environmental policies.

Seliger hardly has been a screaming lefty on all or any of these issues. If it’s true, as Burka suggests, that this challenge is the product of Sullivan’s personal antipathy toward Seliger, then the state — not to mention the West Texas Senate district Seliger represents — would be ill-served if voters turn against the incumbent.