Tag Archives: Texas GOP

Evangelical infatuation with Trump still confuses

Someone has to explain something to me in simple language.

My question goes like this: How does Donald J. Trump continue to hold tightly onto support from the evangelical Christian community?

I ask because of a blog posted by R.G. Ratcliffe in Texas Monthly. Ratcliffe writes about a potential Republican challenger for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz next year from an evangelical TV network executive who is angry that Cruz didn’t endorse Trump at the 2016 Republican presidential nominating convention.

The challenge might come from Bruce K. Jacobson Jr., vice president for LIFE Outreach International and an aide to James Robison, a noted televangelist.

I do not get this! Honest! It confuses me in the extreme!

Christians line up behind Trump

The president of the United States would seem to be totally anathema to the evangelical movement, given the president’s past. He has bragged about his marital infidelity; he has admitted to groping women; he never has been associated with faith-based causes or associated openly with religious organizations.

Sen. Cruz has been much friendlier to evangelical causes than Trump ever had been prior to his becoming president. Jacobson, though, holds Cruz’s non-endorsement at the RNC in 2016 against him.

As Ratcliffe writes: Cruz had signed a pledge to support the party’s nominee, Jacobson said, but then didn’t follow through at the convention. “I’m concerned about anybody who doesn’t keep their word. I’ve very concerned about that. In Texas, when we give our word, it’s our word,” Jacobson said.

If memory serves, Cruz made that pledge early in the GOP presidential primary campaign, only to be humiliated personally by Trump’s insults and lies. Trump disparaged Cruz’s wife with a cruel tweet and then suggested the senator’s father was linked somehow to the assassination of President Kennedy. Cruz called Trump an “amoral” liar, which I also happen to believe he is.

Did the eventual Republican nominee conduct himself as a “good Christian” with that kind of behavior?

I don’t know about you, but I am not at all surprised — nor displeased — that Ted Cruz chose not to “endorse” Trump at the 2016 Republican convention.

So here we are. Cruz stood on a principle of fair treatment and for that he might get a Republican Party primary challenge from an evangelical Christian leader?

Explain it to me. Please.

Will this Senate race really become a contest?

My wife and I sat across a restaurant dinner table recently with friends in Colorado when the question came from one of them.

“Do you think Ted Cruz is going to get beat next year by that guy from El Paso?” our friend asked.

I had to answer honestly. “No. I don’t think it’s going to happen,” I said.

Cruz is the first-term Republican U.S. senator I have labeled as the Cruz Missile. The guy from El Paso is a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives named Beto O’Rourke.

Both are young men. Both are dynamic in their respective ways. Cruz, though, holds all the cards in this year’s election cycle. Why? The answer is clear cut: He is a Republican running for re-election in what clearly is among the most Republican-friendly states in the United States of America.

O’Rourke is seeking to mine what Democrats believe is the changing demographic makeup of Texas. They are hoping that with more Latino residents who tend to vote for Democrats that O’Rourke will be able to knock Cruz out of the Senate.

I am no fan of Ted Cruz. He has shown himself to be a blowhard and showboat since taking office in 2013.

I believe I am a realist, though, in trying to assess the political landscape in Texas.

Voters here seem obsessed with voting for Republicans. I see no change in the state’s GOP-leaning pattern in 2018. It seems the only thing that can derail a Cruz re-election would be a scandal of monumental proportions.

I don’t see it happening.

Beto O’Rourke might be the perfect candidate for the U.S. Senate. Except that he’s running in Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994. The losing streak isn’t about to end.

Sad.

Speaker Price? Sure, why not? But only if …

Four Price is a friend of mine who I’ve known for about two decades.

Having gotten that disclosure out of the way, you may take my endorsement of the Amarillo Republican lawmaker’s potential candidacy for speaker of the Texas House of Representatives for what it’s worth.

I believe he would make a smashing speaker.

But here’s the important caveat I want to attach to it: I want him to follow the lead set by his good buddy, the current speaker who’s leaving the Legislature after the 2018 election.

Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican, is quitting politics. He calls the atmosphere too “divisive” and too “partisan.” He sought to run the House of Representatives with a bipartisan touch. He worked with Democrats as well as Republicans.

That sense of political comity cost Straus support among the hard-core Republicans who believe he had become a Republican In Name Only, a dreaded RINO.

I don’t sense that Price, also a Republican, believes that of his friend and colleague. I believe it would be pure folly for Price to buckle under the pressure that some of the right-wingnuts are going to exert.

One of them happens to run the Texas Senate. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick locked horns with Speaker Straus over that damn Bathroom Bill that died a well-deserved death in this summer’s special legislative session. The bill would have required transgender people to use public restrooms in accordance to their birth certificate gender. Patrick wanted the bill passed into law; Straus resisted, earning him the scorn of county GOP organizations, including the Randall County Republican Party, which resolved to support someone else for speaker in the 2019 session.

So, to my friend Four Price, I ask only this: If you’re going to run for speaker, please resist the temptation to tilt too far to the right. Do not forsake the millions of Texans — such as yours truly — who believe that moderation is critical to effective governing.

All hell is about to break loose in Austin

You want to hear the rumble of thunder under your feet?

Put your ear to the ground and get a load of the racket emanating from a Texas legislator’s announcement that he won’t seek re-election in 2018.

That would be House Speaker Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican, who stood firm, tall and steady against the onslaught of the far right within his party. Straus is calling it quits.

The Texas Tribune is reporting that a political earthquake is under way in Austin. A Rice University political scientist says the “political center in Texas” has just collapsed.

That might be the truth.

Straus fought against the TEA Party and other fringe elements within the Republican Party. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick sought to shove the Bathroom Bill down our throats. Straus was having none of it; a bill that would require people to use public restrooms according to the gender noted on their birth certificate. The Bathroom Bill discriminates against transgendered individuals and Straus wouldn’t stand for it.

His stubborn refusal to let the bill get a vote in the House has drawn the outrage from those on the right. So the speaker is out of there.

And the successors are starting the line up. One of them might be a friend of mine, Rep. Four Price, an Amarillo Republican first elected to the House in 2010. I asked Price about the speaker’s future a few weeks ago, but he said he was standing behind his guy, Straus.

Now that the speaker is on his way out, there exists an opportunity for one of Straus’s key lieutenants — that would be Price — to step in and maintain the moderate tone that the House ought to keep.

As the Texas Tribune reports: More than any other Texas Republican with real power, Straus was seen as a voice of moderation. On issue after issue, he and his team alone stood in the way of the kind of runaway populism that Donald Trump championed and major statewide Republicans endorsed.

Here’s the Tribune article

Will another moderate step up? Might it be Four Price? And would a Speaker Price resist the pressure that’s sure to come hard from the far right?

Meanwhile, the ground continues to rumble.

Is there a West Texas primary donnybrook in the making?

That old trick knee of mine is flaring up again.

It’s throbbing so much that I am beginning to think that West Texas Republican voters are facing the prospect of a serious donnybrook in the race for the state Senate District seat now held by Amarillo businessman Kel Seliger.

My critics are all too willing to remind me that the trick knee isn’t nearly as reliable as I’ve suggested it is. But that’s all right. It’s telling me that Seliger is going to have to fend off some serious criticism from two GOP primary foes. The criticism well might center on the senator’s decision against endorsing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s own re-election bid in 2018.

I have read Sen. Seliger’s comments on this decision. He said he’ll “support” Patrick — I presume with his vote. He just won’t declare his endorsement out loud in public, for the record.

Seliger’s decision drew a hair-trigger response from Amarillo restauranteur Victor Leal, who suggested that Seliger is turning his back on the Senate’s presiding officer. I am guessing that Leal is going to endorse Patrick, one of the Texas GOP’s more vivid ideologues. Seliger isn’t wired the same way, and my hunch is that his own legislative temperament — which differs greatly from Patrick — has compelled him to withhold his active endorsement of the lieutenant governor.

The third Senate District 31 Republican candidate, former Midland Mayor Mike Canon, likely will seek to gain some political leverage, too. He’s a TEA Party kind of guy, which also runs anathema to Seliger’s more measured and studied approach to legislating.

Seliger has told local media that he expects a tough fight. I will presume he’ll prepare for one as well. It is my hope that he preps for a bruising campaign and gets ready to rumble with Leal and Canon.

Leal is a known quantity in the northern half of the Panhandle; Canon’s base is in the Permian Basin. Seliger, a former Amarillo mayor, has managed to make his presence felt down yonder in the southern part of the sprawling district.

I’ve already revealed my bias in this race; I want Sen. Seliger to win the nomination, which in this district is tantamount to election.

The only bit of advice I can give Seliger — based on my trick knee — is to get his opposition research ready and to respond quickly and forcefully to the attacks that are sure to come his direction.

Seliger won’t ‘endorse’ Lt. Gov. Patrick; imagine that

I just know in my bones that I am not the only observer who saw this one coming.

Texas state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, has decided he won’t endorse fellow Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in 2018. Seliger said he won’t endorse anyone else; he said he intends to “support” Patrick — whatever the hell that means.

He just won’t “endorse” him, preferring to concentrate on his own re-election bid for the Senate District 31 seat he’s held since 2004.

Not a single aspect of this surprises me.

Seliger hasn’t been one of Patrick’s guys in the Senate. Sure, he’s backed much of Patrick’s agenda during the 2017 legislative session. He bolted on a couple of key issues:  a bill that restricts local property tax increases and a bill that sought to subsidize the cost of private schools.

Patrick announced that 19 of 20 state GOP senators were endorsing his re-election. Seliger’s name was absent from the list of Republican lawmakers. Is the Amarillo Republican worried? Hardly.

Seliger faces stern test for re-election

Indeed, Seliger already is getting set for a rough-and-tumble GOP primary battle in Senate District 31. Seliger will run against former Midland Mayor Mike Canon — who lost to Seliger in 2014 — and Amarillo businessman Victor Leal.

I’ll stipulate once again that I want Seliger to be renominated. I also will stipulate that I am no fan of Lt. Gov. Patrick, who I consider to be a ideological blowhard. Seliger is not. He is a serious legislative technician who I believe works hard at understanding the issues pertinent to the vast Senate district he represents.

I am going to presume that Seliger understands that he works for West Texas voters, not the guy who presides over the Texas Senate.

Randall County GOP puts Speaker Straus on notice

So, just how Republican-red is Randall County, Texas?

It believes that the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Joe Straus of San Antonio, isn’t conservative enough. It believes he has stalled legislation near and dear to the far right wing of the GOP. Why, he is just too bipartisan, too willing to work with those dreaded Democrats in the Texas House.

So, the Randall County Republican Party has joined some other county GOP operations in pulling its support of Straus should the Republican seek another term as speaker of the House.

Good bleeping grief!

Straus appears to have drawn the ire of the Randall County GOP because he heeds public opinion on certain controversial measures. Off the top of my noggin, the Bathroom Bill comes immediately to mind.

Texas senators approved the Bathroom Bill, which was pushed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and sent it to the House. Straus opposed the bill that requires transgender people to use public bathrooms in accordance to the sexual identity stated on their birth certificate. Straus saw the bill for what it was: an unenforceable act of discrimination against some Texans. He joined chiefs of police, business executives and medical professionals who also opposed the Bathroom Bill.

But because he didn’t push this monstrosity of a bill through the House — among other legislation — he no longer deserves to be speaker. The Randall County GOP’s resolution seeks to get state Reps. John Smithee and Four Price, both Amarillo Republicans, to vote against Straus if he seeks another speaker term.

It’s interesting to me that Price, whose district includes Potter County, declined to comment to the media about the Randall County resolution. Why do you suppose he did that? Oh, maybe it’s because he might applaud the job Straus has done while serving as the Man of the House.

I don’t want the Randall County Republican Party to have its way. The Texas House has managed to stall some overheated legislative remedies, the Bathroom Bill being one of them.

As for the bipartisanship that Straus has shown, I welcome that, too. It is in keeping with a longstanding Texas legislative tradition with governors, lieutenant governors and Texas House speakers routinely reaching across the aisle to get things done for the good of the entire state.

Sen. Seliger gets needed challenge

I used to drive former state Rep. David Swinford borderline batty with my occasional columns about the need for incumbents to get challenged at every election cycle.

My argument always has been that political incumbents at every level need to defend their record against legitimate challengers to their incumbency. The Dumas (Texas) Republican legislator understood that argument … but he still would express some mild (and good-natured) displeasure at my stating it.

One of Swinford’s colleagues — Republican state Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo — is getting a serious challenge again this coming year. Regular readers of this blog know that I want Seliger to win his party’s nomination, which is tantamount to election in the GOP-friendly Texas Panhandle.

But he’s going to have to work for it. Which I consider to be good (a) for the incumbent and (b) for the cause of good government.

Former Midland Mayor Mike Canon is stepping up once more to challenge Seliger. The two of them faced off in 2014. The race was close, but Seliger emerged victorious. This year, Amarillo business owner Victor Leal has joined the Republican primary lineup.

The quality of Leal’s candidacy remains to be seen. Canon’s approach four years ago was to talk in TEA Party clichés, talking points and platitudes. He still garnered a lot of votes.

That’s all OK, though.

Seliger has served the sprawling Texas Senate District 31 he has represented since 2004 quite well, in my estimation. That doesn’t mean he should get a free pass.

Representative democracy demands a stout challenge when the opportunity presents itself. It’s doing so in this legislative contest.

Whoever emerges victorious in this primary fight — and I do hope it’s Seliger — figures to be tempered by the difficult campaign he will have endured. That’s good for state government.

Seliger expects tough race … really, do ya think?

I don’t mean to disparage my friend Kel Seliger, but the Texas state senator has demonstrated a stunning command of the obvious.

He thinks he’s in for a tough fight for re-election to the Senate, given the presence of two Republican Party primary challengers ready to run against him in the spring of 2018. One of them came within 4 percentage points of defeating Seliger in 2014.

Seliger held a town hall meeting at Amarillo College’s downtown campus and received words of support from those in attendance.

I’ve already declared my preference that Seliger be re-elected to the seat he’s held since 2004. Seliger is smart, well-versed in Legislature-speak, has a command of the legislative process, is a traditional Republican conservative and has ascended to a leadership position among the 31 members of the Texas Senate.

However, he is facing some potentially stiff headwinds as he prepares for his re-election campaign.

Many Texas Republicans seem to think Seliger isn’t conservative enough. I am uncertain what constitutes a sufficiently conservative Republican in Texas. I guess it involves those who base their public policy on religious principles, who wear their faith on their shirt sleeves. Seliger isn’t wired that way. Instead, he is campaigning for re-election on a platform that seeks to keep power invested mostly in local communities, rather than the state. That sounds pretty damn conservative to me.

Former Midland Mayor Mike Canon is making another run at Seliger’s seat, along with Amarillo restauranteur Victor Leal. Canon is a TEA Party favorite, which I suppose makes him more amenable to the likes of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who is no friend of Sen. Seliger. Canon had the support in 2014 of ultraconservative political activist Michael Quinn Sullivan and this time has the backing of Empower Texas, another conservative outfit that has it in for Seliger.

Leal’s backing? I’m not yet sure where his strength lies. He’s got some good name identification in Amarillo, owing to his successful business venture. He’s a former Muleshoe mayor who made a run for the Texas House in 2011; he was defeated by Four Price for the District 87 vacated when David Swinford retired from public life.

Senate District 31 is one of the most sprawling districts in Texas. It has grown over the years as Texas’s population has shifted east and south of the Panhandle. But through many decades, SD 31 has been represented by a Panhandle resident; Seliger was preceded by Teel Bivins, who was preceded by Bill Sarpalius, who was preceded by Bob Price, who came to office after Max Sherman.

Do you get my drift here?

Yet, Seliger has done a good job of acquainting himself with the needs of the South Plains and the Permian Basin.

Does he face a tough fight for re-election? Well, yeah! He does!

This GOP primary well might emerge as one of the most-watched contests in Texas in 2018. I hope Sen. Seliger is ready for the major-league scrap.

Seliger makes it official: He’s running again for the Senate

I am heartened to learn that Kel Seliger is going to run for re-election to the Texas Senate.

The Amarillo Republican has two GOP primary opponents, one of whom he defeated in 2014; the other Republican challenger comes from the heart of Seliger’s base.

Seliger will face former Midland Mayor Mike Canon and Amarillo businessman Victor Leal.

I watched the Seliger-Canon primary fight up close four years ago. It shouldn’t have been a contest. It turned out to be one. Canon, a lawyer by profession, is a TEA Party favorite. He speaks in platitudes and clichés. Seliger demonstrated clearly in the 2014 primary campaign a firm grasp of the details of legislating, of state law and of how government works.

Canon managed to split the vast District 31 Republican Party primary vote nearly in half, losing the primary by about 4 percentage points to Seliger.

Now we have Leal entering the race. I don’t yet know what kind of campaign Leal is going to run. He’s got some good name ID, given all the radio advertising he runs promoting his restaurant. Seliger will have to deal with that in some form or fashion.

Seliger’s platform will stress “local control.” He said in a statement that he believes that “Folks closest to a problem are usually the best at solving it.” Good deal, senator. Then perhaps he’ll persuade the 2019 Texas Legislature, presuming he wins re-election, to stop monkeying around with cities’ efforts to install red-light cameras as a deterrent to those who keep breaking the law by running through those stop lights.

I’ve already stipulated that I consider Seliger to be a friend. I also am impressed by how quickly he grasped the nuts and bolts of legislating after he was elected initially in 2004.

Seliger says he’ll run as a conservative legislator. According to some political interest groups, though, he’s not conservative enough. Empower Texas is one such group that likely will work to defeat Seliger. I believe this group is making a mistake.

Kel Seliger knows the pulse of Senate District 31 from the Permian Basin to the top of the Panhandle. He needs to return to the Senate.

Right there might be Sen. Seliger’s first political endorsement.

You’re welcome, senator.