Tag Archives: Dan Patrick

local news, political news, State news

Panhandle no longer forsaken?

It’s been said over the years — often by yours truly — that Democrats have given up on the Texas Panhandle while Republicans have taken us for granted.

The major candidates from both parties don’t come here often to campaign for office, to court voters or tell us how important we are to their electoral chances.

Well, this week two major candidates for lieutenant governor are venturing into the Panhandle to do all of that.

http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2014-10-27/van-de-putte-stumps-Amarillo

It’s the Democrat’s visit that I find most intriguing.

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte staged an Amarillo rally understanding full well that she’s venturing into the belly of the beast, so to speak. She is planning a last-minute statewide blitz that includes Amarillo and Lubbock, the twin “capitals” of the most Republican region of a most Republican state.

Will this visit put her over the top? Don’t bet on it. Her Republican foe, and the presumptive favorite, state Sen. Dan Patrick is coming here as well. I’m still waiting to see if another state senator, Republican Kel Seliger of Amarillo, plans to throw his arm around Patrick’s back on a star-spangled podium. Patrick’s visit is more expected, given the voting strength he is expected to enjoy here.

Van de Putte? That’s another matter.

Honestly, it’s a bit gratifying that a leading Democrat would even bother to come here.

Yes, the pendulum swings both ways.

Back in the old days, when I first arrived in Texas, I landed in Beaumont, one of the last Democratic strongholds in Texas. Republican candidates for high office were as hard to find in Jefferson County as Democrats are in, say, Randall County.

This is all part of why I long for a day when Democrats can regain something akin to equal footing with Republicans statewide. It brings all regions of the state into play and attracts candidates of both major parties to all regions to do what they call a little “retail politicking.”

That is a good thing for the political process.

 

political news, State news

From 'Worst' to the top of the ladder?

Dan Patrick might be poised to become Texas’s next lieutenant governor.

If that’s the case — and the betting is that he will — then the Texas Senate, where this guy now serves, is going to become a certifiable loony bin.

Texas Monthly, which takes pride in a reasonable, studious and careful analysis of legislators’ performance, rated him among the worst of the 31 men and women who serve in the state Senate. To think, then, that Patrick now aspires to be the man running the state’s upper legislative chamber, which is what the lieutenant governor does.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/lists/worst-senator-dan-Patrick

I know what you might be thinking: Oh, yeah. Texas Monthly’s nothing more than a pandering mouthpiece for them nutty liberal Democrats.

The magazine, though, has routinely heaped plenty of praise on Republican lawmakers over the years. Former Sen. Bob Duncan of Lubbock? One of the magazine’s favorites. Former Sen. Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant? He, too, has received plenty of praise. Why I that? Because these are reasonable men who knew how to legislate, how to work with Democrats, who worked and studied hard on key issues of the day.

Patrick isn’t cut from that cloth, according to Texas Monthly, which wrote this about Patrick’s service in the 2013 Legislature: “There are few types of lawmakers less helpful to the legislative process than bullies and ideologues. Unfortunately, Dan Patrick too often seemed to be both in his first session as the chair of the Senate Education Committee. The Houston radio host fell into a habit of lecturing his fellow legislators, interrupting witnesses, and accusing those who disagreed with him of simply not understanding his bills. In short, he ran his committee like he runs his talk show, where the only opinion that really matters is his own..”

This is the guy who figures to ram his own ideas down the throats of the individuals who will serve in the Senate.

While chairing the Education Committee, he decided to badger Education Commissioner Michael Williams — himself no shrinking violet — about end-of-course exams that students need to take to graduate from high school. Williams sought to “respectfully disagree,” but before he could, Patrick cut him off and berated him.

It utterly amazes me (a) that this guy won the Republican Party nomination over a sitting lieutenant governor and (b) is favored to win the office over another state senator, Democrat Leticia Van de Putte, who happens, shall we say, to be more interested in legislating than showboating.

As the late lieutenant governor, Bob Bullock, might say if he were around today: God help Texas.

 

 

political news, State news

Sen. Patrick getting scarier all the time

The more I read about Texas’s next probable lieutenant governor, the more concerned I become over our state’s future.

Dan Patrick is likely to be elected to the No. 2 position among all Texas politicians on Nov. 4. He’s the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. He’s a state senator from Houston who’s running against his colleague, Democratic state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio.

Mother Jones has assembled a glossary of some of the more outrageous things Patrick has said and done during his time in the Senate.

Man Who Believes God Speaks to Us Through “Duck Dynasty” Is About to Be Texas’ Second-in-Command

OK, before we go any further, I’ll concede that Mother Jones is not friendly toward Patrick or those who agree with his world view.

But some of this stuff is utterly mind-blowing.

He talks about immigrants bringing “Third World diseases” into the United States; he walked out of a Senate invocation that was being delivered by a Muslim cleric; he once joked, in 1992, that Asian-American broadcast journalist Connie Chung’s show “Eye to Eye” should be called “Slanted Eye to Eye”; he once declared “there is no such thing as separation of church and state.”

Mother Jones lists other bizarre statements that have flown out of Patrick’s mouth over the years.

He comes from a radio background, which I suppose says plenty about how a guy with a machine-gun mouth occasionally lets the rhetorical bullets fly with abandon.

Some folks find him entertaining, I suppose. I prefer someone who is more thoughtful.

If he wins — and it’s looking as though he will — he’s going to turn the Texas Senate, over which the lieutenant governor presides, into a much-less collegial body. Patrick has all but guaranteed that by vowing to do away with the two-thirds rule — which requires at least 21 senators to support a bill before it goes to a vote; the idea is to promote bipartisan support for legislation. He’s also suggested he’ll appoint only Republicans to committee chairmanships, doing away with the custom that lieutenant governors of both parties have followed of appointing members of the minority party to lead Senate committees.

Texas’s legislative branch of government — at least one half-half of it — is likely to become a hostile work environment for those who don’t like the way it’s going to be run.

political news, State news

Wishing to know how pols actually vote

Early voting for the Texas mid-term election starts Monday and it brings to mind something that’s been on my mind of late.

It’s my wish that I could learn how people in high public political places vote for their peers … other high-profile political figures.

I pose the notion with state Sen. Dan Patrick in mind. Patrick is the Republican candidate for Texas lieutenant governor, who I believe has as many foes on his side of the aisle as he has on the other side.

It’s just a hunch.

I must stipulate that I’ve never met Patrick. I know about him based only on what I’ve read in the media. What do I know about him? That he’s mercurial; he’s a fiery conservative who’s all but acknowledged he doesn’t care about any public official who doesn’t share his philosophy; he is quick with the quip and short on compassion.

So I wonder whether he’s going to get the full-throated support of Texas senators from within his own party.

Yes, we vote in private. I cannot in good conscience ask a state or Panhandle public official whether they actually are going to vote for someone such as Patrick. We call them “secret ballots” for a reason, even though such secrecy hasn’t stopped the critics over in Kentucky from wondering why Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes won’t say whether she voted for Barack Obama for president.

In 1998, George W. Bush was running for re-election as governor. He came to the Amarillo Globe-News to meet with its editorial board for the purpose of obtaining the newspaper’s endorsement. Gov. Bush was affable, talkative, well-versed on the issues and we had a thoroughly engaging and sometimes-frank discussion of his candidacy.

Then I asked him this question: “Governor, who are you supporting for lieutenant governor?”

Before the final word of that sentence came out of my mouth, he blurted out: Rick Perry!

Why bring this up? Well, it struck me odd at the moment that Gov. Bush didn’t elaborate on why he backed his fellow Republican over Democrat John Sharp. He didn’t say, “I’m supporting Rick Perry because he’ll continue the tradition of working across the aisle, as Bob Bullock has done,” or even that “Rick Perry is a friend of mine and he and I share the same conservative values that most Texans hold dear.”

No. He said, “Rick Perry” — and not a single word more.

I’ve long had this notion that despite that public pronouncement that Gov. Bush well could have voted differently when he stepped into the voting booth.

Dan Patrick’s fiery reputation has me wondering the same thing now about those who proclaim their support for him.

political news, State news

Abbott is swimming in campaign cash

Greg Abbott has become a fundraising dynamo in his campaign for governor, which a lot of observers think he’s going to win next month.

He’s got an estimated $30 million in the bank. He won’t spend it all, according to the Texas Tribune.

What’s the deal?

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/08/brief/

It appears he’s saving it up for the next campaign in 2018, which could get serious if another Republican — state Sen. Dan Patrick — is elected lieutenant governor.

Patrick might be so darn full of himself that he’ll want to challenge Abbott for governor in four years. I’m worried far less about Patrick’s challenge of Abbott than I worry about what kind of governor Abbott would become.

Here’s the deal.

If Abbott wants to fend off a challenge from the right wing of his party, he’ll have to govern from the far right. That means he’ll let loose with fiery rhetoric about border security, working with Texas congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, appointing right-wing ideologues to all those boards and commissions and perhaps even raising the specter of secession when the moment presents itself.

There might be a formidable Democrat out there who’ll challenge a Gov. Abbott in 2018. Let’s not kid ourselves, though, about where the stiffest challenge might present itself.

It’ll come from within the Republican Party.

As the Tribune reports: “The target of this cash juggernaut, of course, may not be a Democrat at all, but rather GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick, who as (Austin American-Statesman reporter Jonathan) Tilove writes, ‘would like to be governor someday.'”

Therein lies the concern of where an Abbott governorship will take the state in the meantime.

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Patrick is sounding scary

I’ll say this up front: Texas voters very well might be on the verge of electing a seriously frightening politician as their next lieutenant governor.

His name is Dan Patrick, a Republican state senator from Houston.

He’s glib. He is articulate. He is quick on his feet. He’s also unapologetically ultra-conservative — in a scary sort of way.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/patrick-v-van-de-putte

One of my favorite pundits, Paul Burka, hit it squarely in a blog post for Texas Monthly. Commenting on his debate with Democratic opponent state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, Burka writes: “The most interesting thing about the debate was Patrick’s persona. He felt no need to soften his message or appeal to more mainstream voters. This is exactly who he is, and who he wants to be: a true conservative radical.”

Those of us who’ve watched Texas politics transition from a conservative Democratic state to an ultra-conservative Republican one are well aware of the strength of what passes today for the Republican Party. Patrick fits that profile to the letter.

It’s scary to think that Texans very well could elect someone who, as Burka notes, wants to boost the sales tax beyond all reason and who actually talked the other night in his debate with debate with Van de Putte about immigrants tracking unknown diseases into the state.

He makes no apologies for the massive budget cuts that have affected public education. He wants the Senate — which the lieutenant governor runs as its presiding officer — to become more partisan, not less.

Patrick sounds like someone who believes that all Texans believe as he does and that he intends to run the Legislature’s upper chamber in such a manner.

Such arrogance, of course, is utter nonsense. That won’t stop millions of Texans on Nov. 4 from voting for this guy.

He’s favored to win the lieutenant governorship. It makes me sad that Texas is going to demonstrate to the rest of the country just how wacky we’ve become.

I will predict right here and now that a Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is going to drive the few reasonable and moderate Republicans left in the Senate out of office.

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Dewhurst is pushing the panic button

David Dewhurst always seemed like a reasonable, responsible, reliable Republican.

I didn’t know much about him when he and I met the first time as he ran for Texas land commissioner back in 1998. He was new to the Texas political spotlight. He seemed bright and engaged fully in the nuance of Texas government at many levels.

Now he’s gone to the dark side. He’s joined the nut-case crowd of the Texas Republican Party. He’s now a lame duck, having been beaten for his job by someone who’s even farther out there on the rightest wing of the party, Dan Patrick.

So what does Dewhurst do? Does he recede quietly back into the shadows and wait for his term to end? Oh no. He goes to that Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. and proclaim that Muslims are infiltrating our southern border.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/09/26/dewhurst-tells-dc-crowd-prayer-rugs-found-border/

How does he know that? He says Border Patrol authorities have found prayer rugs way down yonder. That means those dreaded “Islamic fanatics” are coming into Texas to blow up buildings, kill people and convert the United States of America into an Islamic nation.

Of course, the federal government denies such rugs exist.

The Texas Tribune reports: “(A) Texas congressman who sits on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee has argued that there’s no threat of extremism on the border. U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, said during that same panel that top Pentagon officials had denied that there was any threat on the Texas-Mexico border from the Islamic State (ISIS) or similar groups. He added that similar claims were made about extremists crossing into Texas from Mexico during the United States’ conflicts with Libya in the 1980s, which he also mentioned to The Economist in an article published this week.”

Dewhurst always struck me as a studious guy, dedicated to the meticulous detail of legislating. It’s been said of him that he at times lacks the people skills needed to be an effective politician.

After reading his remarks at that Values Voter gathering, he also seems to lack the judgment to keep his finger off the panic button that signals the start of a religious war.

This isn’t a fight against Islam. It’s a fight against terrorists.

Cool it with the prayer rug talk, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst.

political news, State news

Texas: reddest of the Red States

Texas is Ground Zero — pardon the reference — of the conservative movement.

That’s the assessment of Dan Balz, a veteran Washington Post political reporter, who uses land commissioner candidate George P. Bush as his example of the state’s rightward shift.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/texas-has-become-epicenter-of-conservative-movement/2014/09/20/71678e12-410f-11e4-a430-b82a3e67b762_story.html

Bush is the grandson and nephew of two former presidents and the son of a former Florida governor. All three of his ancestors, Balz said, used to personify the “kinder, gentler” wing of the Republican Party. Bush thinks GOP firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz is the future of his party and he said so at a gathering of pols and pundits at a Texas Tribune talk-fest held in Austin.

Indeed, the view that Texas is leading the conservative charge probably isn’t that much of a surprise. Even when it leaned heavily Democratic, its officeholders weren’t usually considered — at that time, at least — to be squishy liberals. The most successful Democrats in the state were folks like John Connally, Lloyd Bentsen, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. Yes, you had your occasional lefty in there, such as Ralph Yarborough and then Ann Richards.

The last Democrat elected to statewide office in 1994 was John Sharp, hardly a lefty, who’s now chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.

So, Texas has leaned right for longer than the GOP has been in control of everything.

As for the model of today’s modern conservatism in Texas, look at Dan Patrick, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. He’s just recently declared his intention to rid the state of the DREAM Act, which allows Texans brought here illegally by their parents to enroll in state public colleges and universities as “in-state” students, paying in-state tuition rates.

Gov. Rick Perry, a fiery conservative if there ever was one, endorses the DREAM Act. Not Patrick. If he’s elected, he’ll get rid of it.

Yep, the state is No. 1 all right.

national news, political news

DREAM on, Sen. Patrick

Texas Republicans have this problem with Hispanics, who see them as hard-hearted and uncaring about the needs of the state’s fastest-growing demographic group.

The state GOP is trying some outreach to the Hispanic community. Then along comes the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor to say that if he’s elected he’ll work to repeal the DREAM Act for young Texans seeking to enroll at public universities.

Well done, state Sen. Dan Patrick. You just might have shot yourself — and your party — in both feet.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/09/22/patricks-push-repeal-dream-act-could-face-criticis/

Current state law, the DREAM Act, allows undocumented immigrants to enroll at Texas colleges and universities and pay in-state tuition. This law applies to those who were brought here illegally as children by their parents. They are here because their parents decided to come to Texas to seek a better life.

So the state has allowed them to enroll in public colleges and universities as if they are Texans, which they are, given that they’ve grown up here, come of age here, known only life in Texas.

Dan Patrick says he’ll do away with that, toeing the conservative line so popular among Texas Republicans.

Let’s back up, though, for just a second. Two other prominent Texas conservatives support the DREAM Act. One of them is Gov. Rick Perry, who’s leaving office at the end of the year. The other one is Perry’s predecessor as governor, George W. Bush, who then went on to be elected to two terms as president of the United States.

Perry and Bush get it. They understand what the DREAM Act does for young Texans who want to get an education at a price they can afford.

Patrick doesn’t get it. All he gets is what his party’s “base” keeps shouting in his ear.

The most interesting push back to Patrick’s vow to kill the law comes from a group that has endorsed him, the Texas Association of Business. Its executive director, Bill Hammond, a former legislator from Dallas said this: “We think in-state tuition is a very appropriate response to the fact that we need more Texans going to college and completing college. We choose to disagree with him respectfully on this issue.”

Bill Hammond and the TAB get it, too.

political news, State news

Davis needed a knockdown; she barely landed a punch

It pains me to say this, but Wendy Davis — if you’ll pardon the boxing pun — barely laid a glove on Greg Abbott at their debate this past week in Edinburg

She tossed haymakers from the opening bell. Abbott — using his best Muhammad Ali tactic of pulling away from the punches — let them sail past him.

The two candidates for Texas governor have another debate lined up later this month. If Davis, the Democrat, hopes to draw blood (politically speaking, of course) from Abbott, the Republican, she’ll need to land some sharper jabs and hooks.

Have you had enough of the boxing puns? Good. Me, too.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/09/19/davis-goes-on-attack-debate/

Davis has had difficulty getting traction for her uphill campaign against Abbott. It’s not entirely that I want her to win, which I do, that upsets me. I am hoping at the very least that Davis makes Abbott defend himself in his effort to torpedo the Affordable Care Act in Texas, his support of deep cuts in public education, and his support of the overly restrictive anti-abortion bill that Davis fought to defeat.

I’m beginning to go along with most Texas political observers who think Abbott is going to win this one easily. I’m thinking 12, maybe 15 percentage points.

Part of Davis’s problem in campaigning against Abbott is that Texas voters seem to turn deaf ear to problems involving Republican candidates. The state is so deeply Republican these days that GOP candidates seemingly need to be caught committing acts of bestiality to have their credibility stripped.

Is Abbott a crook? Is he a liar? I don’t think he’s either.

He’s just running for governor as a Republican at precisely the right time in this state’s history to be doing so. He is running as a smart politician who knows the lay of the land.

Moreover, if Abbott he trounces Davis — as some are predicting — then I would caution another up-and-coming Republican, lieutenant governor nominee Dan Patrick, to be wary of challenging Abbott in four years.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/abbott-and-money-machine