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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.

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Field of five emerges for Potter judge race

As is quite often the case, my attempt at political prognostication proved pointless.

I had posited a notion that two candidates for Potter County judge would vie against each other the seat being vacated by long-time incumbent Arthur Ware. Silly me. I didn’t anticipate a field of five Republicans running for the office next year.

I’ll stick with my view that two leading candidates will continue to be Nancy Tanner, Ware’s long-time administrative assistant, and former Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt. The rest of ’em?

I know two of the other guys: Jeff Poindexter and Bill Sumerford. Poindexter has run unsuccessfully several times for Amarillo City Commission posts. He’s an earnest and nice guy. Sumerford is the “gadfly” I mentioned in an earlier post. He’s a kind of tax-cutting tea party activist and has led petition drives to put measures on the ballot, believing that voters should have to decide everything.

Neither of these guys is a serious contender for the judge’s office.

I don’t know Bill Bandy, the fifth person in the race. He’s done a lot of things in his life, served on some boards and once worked as an “assistant” to former state Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas. I am intrigued by the “assistant” label attached to him in media coverage. I’d like to know to what level he assisted Swinford, whether it was on serious policy matters or whether he moved furniture around in Swinford’s office.

Well, all that said, the contest remains — in my view — a two-woman campaign between Tanner and McCartt, although the three other candidates could produce a runoff if the winner of the GOP primary doesn’t reach the 50-percent-plus-one-vote majority needed to be nominated outright.

I’m thinking now that Bill Bandy could be the darkhorse.

This could be fun.

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Cornyn vs. um, Stockman? Seriously?

Politico reports that several key Republican U.S. senators will face tea party challengers this coming year, and that John Cornyn of Texas is the latest to draw a challenge from the far right wing of his party.

I heard about this possibility on Monday and almost cannot believe what has transpired.

U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman of Friendswood (near Houston) has announced he won’t run for a second term in the House of Representatives and instead will run for Cornyn’s Senate seat.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/tea-party-gop-senators-100988.html?hp=t1_3

Utterly … amazing.

Stockman has joined the roster of ridiculousness among Texas members of Congress since his return to the House after the 2012 election. He’s done almost everything possible to make himself a non-serious legislator. He’s yapped about impeaching the president over unspecified “high crimes and misdemeanors.” His campaign staff has gotten itself into a jam over allegedly misspending campaign money.

I should note that Stockman served a single term in the House from 1995 to 1997 before he was defeated for re-election. He had knocked off the late House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks, the crusty Democrat from Beaumont — who, by the way, used to be my congressman when I lived and worked in the Ninth Congressional District.

I won’t say Stockman is an idiot. He just made idiotic statements.

Senior Republicans are finding themselves engaged in this intraparty struggle against insurgent who believe the louder they complain the more points they score.

Stockman says Cornyn didn’t fight hard enough to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Stockman’s conservatism is taking on a ferociousness that makes Cornyn look reasonable and measured … even though Cornyn’s job as the No. 2 man in the Senate is to knock off Democrats whenever he can.

Cornyn describes Stockman’s campaign as comprising “pretty thin gruel.” Boy, howdy.

At least it’ll be entertaining.

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‘Shaking hands with Hitler’? C’mon, Sen. McCain

John McCain needs to get a grip on reality.

The Republican U.S. senator from Arizona compared President Obama’s handshake today with Cuban President Raul Castro as akin to “shaking hands with Adolf Hitler.” Good grief.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-mandela-memorial-172822763.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory

The men met for an instant today as Obama was arriving in a section set aside for dignitaries who gathered to pay their respects to the late Nelson Mandela, who was memorialized today in a stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The meeting was unscripted. It was unplanned. It was totally spontaneous. It also was totally in keeping with the spirit of conciliation and forgiveness that speakers today honored as they spoke of Mandela’s greatness.

I also ought to point out that when President Obama spoke today in the pouring rain, he railed against government leaders who proclaim their undying support for what Mandela stood for while denying their own people the right to protest their government’s policies.

Do you think he might have had Raul Castro in mind when he said that?

John McCain has served his country with high honor. He’s paid a huge sacrifice. That shouldn’t give him license to make patently ridiculous statements on the day the president of the United States represented his country in honoring the life and times of Nelson Mandela.

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Shaking hands with a foe? Stop the presses!

I can hear it now from the conservative media.

There he goes again, shaking hands with our enemies.

President Obama today took a moment at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service to shake hands with Cuban president Raul Castro, who was among the 100 or so heads of state and government who traveled to South Africa to honor the life of one of history’s greatest liberators.

Obama took his seat among the dignitaries and shook hands with a number of them. One of them happened to be Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro, the communist dictator who outlasted 10 U.S. presidents — all of whom sought to remove him from power in Cuba. The United States still has a trade embargo in place against Cuba, a nation we still regard as some kind of geopolitical threat — even though the Cold War ended more than two decades ago.

Then the commentators made an important point about Obama’s fleeting gesture of good will toward Castro: It is totally in keeping with the life of the man they all were gathered to honor.

I’ve said it here already, but it bears repeating. Nelson Mandela emerged from imprisonment in February 1990 with his head held high and his hand held out to those who held him captive. He could have fomented violence. He could have returned to freedom an angry man bent on revenge.

Instead, he reached out to his foes and said, in effect, “Let’s build a new nation together. I need you and you need me.”

No one on Earth — except Barack Obama and Raul Castro — know what they said to each other for all of about two seconds. It doesn’t matter. The nations still are at odds over a whole host of issues. The two men weren’t present in that massive Soweto stadium to argue with each other. They were there to honor a great man’s memory and his glorious life of reconciliation.

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Finding common bond with a stranger

Let’s steer away for a moment from the usual rants about public policy.

I’ll share with you a moment I had at work today. Maybe you can relate to it.

I work part time for an Amarillo automobile dealer, Street Toyota and Scion. My job is as a customer service concierge, meaning I get to greet folks who bring their vehicles in for service, or perhaps they’re in the middle of purchasing a vehicle. They come to our service area and I get to welcome them and offer refreshments, arrange for transportation, whatever it takes to make them comfortable.

Well, a couple walked into our department today. The husband walked off. I struck up a conversation with his wife.

“You here to get your car serviced?” I asked. She said yes and then told me it was her third or fourth visit to the dealership since she moved here. “Oh, and where did you live before?” I asked. She said Pampa. “What brought you to Amarillo?” I inquired.

“My son got married and he lives here with his wife,” she said. Then she added, “And we’re going to have a grandchild … next June.”

I congratulated her and asked if it was her first. “It’s our first biological grandchild,” she answered.

I couldn’t help myself. I let out a quiet whoop and high-fived her. “Well, I feel your joy,” I said with quite a bit of excitement.

I then launched into my familiar refrain about our own first biological grandchild, our precious Emma Nicole, who just turned 9 months old this past week.

The lady then told me her daughter-in-law brought her 12-year-old daughter into the family. “Well, how about that?” I said, explaining that we received a precious gift of our own when our son married a beautiful girl more than a year ago. I then joked how we inherited two “half-grown, house-broken grandsons” who are now 16 and 11. We shared our joy in having these children in our lives.

It occurred to me quite suddenly as we continued our conversation how amazingly similar our emotions were at that moment. We were sharing almost identical joys, she with the impending birth of her first grandchild and me with our own still-infant first granddaughter moving quickly toward toddlerhood.

This is one of the joys of the job I acquired some four months ago. I get to connect with total strangers in unexpected ways.

It also reminds me in spades of how connected we all can be.

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Yep, another federal budget deadline looms

Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to the latest Week When All Hell Might Break Loose.

Here’s the good news: The work week ends on Friday the 13th, which is the day U.S. House and Senate budget negotiators are supposed to produce a budget deal that forestalls another government shutdown.

Any takers on whether they get it done?

Well, here we are yet again. We’ve been through one of these government shutdowns already. It lasted 16 days and Republicans took the big hickey on that deal. The “crisis” ended when all the parties agreed to convene a conference committee chaired by two serious lawmakers — Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin — to hammer out a new budget deal.

The stakes are big. Absent a budget deal, the government could shut down once more. We hear now about a major sticking point: whether to extend unemployment insurance for long-term jobless Americans. President Obama wants to extend the benefit; his “friends” on the Republican side in Congress, naturally, oppose it.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131207/DAAHG0F83.html

House Speaker John Boehner is actually making sense, suggesting Republicans could support an extension.

My guess is that the GOP has another — more pragmatic — reason to avoid a shutdown. It involves the Affordable Care Act.

You see, Democrats have lost their political edge over the ACA rollout. All that advantage they had over Republicans because of the shutdown dissipated when the ACA debut crashed and burned because of that faulty website. It gave Republicans loads of fresh meat to gnaw on. They’re still chewing on it and inflicting as much damage as possible on Democrats.

Do Republicans want to surrender that advantage? I don’t think so.

Therefore, I’m almost ready to suggest that the Murray- and Ryan-led committee just might cobble together a budget deal that heads off a government shutdown.

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Thornberry gets a challenge … from the right!

An acquaintance of mine read a blog I posted about state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, drawing an opponent in next March’s GOP primary.

She wants to know what I think of another race involving a Republican officeholder: U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon.

Well, here goes.

There can be no doubt that Elaine Hays, an Amarillo financial planner, thinks that Thornberry isn’t conservative enough. For the life of me I cannot understand that one.

Here is Hays’s “issues” page taken from her campaign website:

http://www.elainehaysforcongress.com/#!issues/cdbv

Hays is seeking to bounce Thornberry out of the office he’s held since 1995. I looked at the issues summaries posted and I am having trouble finding anything substantively different from what Thornberry has supported during his umpteen terms in Congress.

I must stipulate that I do not know Elaine Hays. She calls herself a “dedicated conservative,” a wife and mother. I am quite sure Thornberry sees himself as just as conservative as Hays and he’s a dedicated husband and father to boot.

Of the issues Hays has cited, I cannot fathom how her voting record would differ from the incumbent’s. Thornberry has voted for pro-life legislation; he’s opposed spending measures proposed by Democrats; he supports gun-owners rights; he’s called for more exploration of fossil fuels to achieve “energy independence”; he’s given the cold shoulder to immigration reform efforts and has spoken in favor of strengthening our borders.

These all are things Hays is saying.

What makes her different? I’m guessing she’s going to be even more forceful than Thornberry in pushing them. That’s about all I can figure.

That spells “tea party Republican” to me.

I didn’t think it was possible to run to the right of Mac Thornberry. I’m guessing Elaine Hays is going to prove me — and a lot of other observers — so very wrong.

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Smithee for House speaker? Don’t think so

Paul Burka, the estimable Texas Monthly editor and blogger, is one of the smarter Texas political analysts around.

I like his analyses — most of the time. I have to disagree with his view that Republican state Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo may be angling for a shot at becoming the next speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/does-john-smithee-want-be-speaker

He’s posted a couple of blog items wondering out loud about Smithee’s aspirations in the wake of his emceeing an event in Tyler involving some tea part Republicans.

Burka notes that Smithee voted against the House budget this past session. It’s a big deal, Burka said, because Smithee chairs the House Insurance Committee, thanks to Speaker Joe Straus’s appointment powers.

Burka asserts further that Smithee appears to have a following among members of the tea party wing of the Republican Party, who don’t like Straus’s coziness with House Democrats.

Here’s my take: John Smithee is a comfortable as a back-bench member of the House, where he has served quietly since 1985.

He’s been mentioned in recent times as a possible speaker candidate. I have asked him directly about the earlier reports of his alleged interest in becoming the Man of the House. I’ve always thought Smithee to be a pretty direct guy; he answers direct questions with direct answers. His response to the query was that he didn’t like the “political” nature of the speakership. And political it is. It involves a lot of deal-making, cajoling, hand-holding, bullying … all of it and more.

Smithee just doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s comfortable assuming all those responsibilities.

Would he make a good speaker? He has a lot of friends in both legislative chambers — in both parties.

My sense is that he values those relationships more than he values being speaker.

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Lawsuit names alcohol vendors

This could get interesting if it goes to trial, which is far from a sure thing.

A Canyon resident is suing a man she says caused a wreck that killed her husband. What’s more, she’s suing two business establishments that served the co-defendant in the suit alcohol the day of the fatal wreck.

The plaintiff is Kristi Powell, whose husband — Kendrick — died in a Jan. 19, 2012 accident on Interstate 40. The defendants are Christopher Easterday, the driver of the other vehicle, Buffalo Wild Wings franchise owner Kendall Howard and The Jungle owner Chandra Brown. Powell filed suit in 181st District Court.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2013-12-07/wife-man-killed-drunken-driving-wreck-sues-jungle-buffalo-wild-wings

You hear about lawsuits such as this from time to time. States have laws that establish liability for business establishments that serve alcohol. Is it their responsibility to ensure that patrons are alert enough to drive? Does the lion’s share of responsibility rest with the customer who is consuming the alcohol? Should the customer realize when he or she has had too much to drive safely? Does the bartender have a responsibility if he or she believes the customer has had enough?

I’m not going to pass judgment. I’m only going to suggest that this case could be worth our attention if it goes to trial.

I won’t bet that it will. Indeed, a pre-trial settlement is likely to reveal plenty about whether the business owners believe they had a hand in this tragic death.

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