Tag Archives: Texas GOP

education news, State news

They work for us … not them!

How many times am I going to say what I’ve been saying since The Flood … which is that our legislators — be they state or federal — work for the people who elect them, not for those who run their respective legislative bodies?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, throttled in his effort to rob public schools of money and handing it to private institutions, is targeting Republican legislators who had the temerity to vote against his school voucher plan. He is endorsing opponents of GOP incumbents seeking re-election in 2024.

Let’s set the record straight. The GOP legislators who oppose school vouchers represent rural districts that depend heavily on the health and livelihood of their public schools. They pledge to their constituents to support public education, given that in many rural communities the school system serves as the lifeblood of the community. Abbott wants to unseat House Republicans who oppose his crusade for school vouchers, which would allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to help pay for private school costs.

They did not pledge to support every single legislative agenda topic favored by Abbott!

This is ham-handed governance at its worst.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is employing the same strategy against those lawmakers who voted to impeach him earlier this year. For the purposes of this blog post, I am going to concentrate on Abbott’s campaign of revenge.

It is absurd!

To their credit, the rural GOP legislators who dug in against vouchers have held firm in their opposition, likely signaling an end to the string of special legislative sessions Abbott kept calling in an effort to foist his voucher plan on Texans. Their resistance infuriates Abbott, to be sure.

My response to that? Big … fu**ing … deal!

These lawmakers are looking out for the interests of the folks who sent them to Austin to do their bidding, not dance to the tune called by Greg Abbott.

education news, local news, State news

Game over, Gov. Abbott

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hasn’t yet disclosed whether he plans to summon the Legislature for a fifth special session.

My hope is that he calls it a day, surrenders to the reality that his cherished school voucher program is DOA, that the House of Reps isn’t going to go along with his notion of robbing public education of money to benefit private schools.

He can wait until the 2025 Legislature to try again, even though it will remain a bad idea in two years.

Rural GOP lawmakers bristled at the notion of taking money from public schools. Why? Because the school system is the heart and soul of many of these communities. I endorse their resistance.

To that end, Gov. Abbott needs to call it quits on this notion.

Our Legislature comprises Texans who have day jobs when they’re not legislating. It’s expensive to the state to call them back. It’s also expensive to many of our lawmakers who need to put their working lives on hold.

Give it up, Gov. Abbott.

local news, political news, State news

GOP regrets all that power?

A saying comes to mind when I consider the infighting and back-biting within the Texas Republican Party’s political hierarchy.

Be careful what you wish for …

Gromer Jeffers Jr., who covers politics for the Dallas Morning News, refers to the “scrum” that has developed between Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Both legislative chambers are at odds with each other over Gov. Greg Abbott’s No. 1 legislative priority: school vouchers.

Republicans who command a super majority in both chambers cannot bridge the chasm that separates the MAGA/Freedom Caucus crowd from the more “establishment” elements within the GOP.

This thought entered my sometimes thick skull this morning as I read Gromers’ piece in the DMN: Might it be time for Texas Democrats to re-emerge from their decades in the wilderness to become a political force in this state? Ponder this for a moment: It could serve Republicans well to have a strong opposition party with which it could do battle rather than wasting time squabbling among themselves.

Phelan and Patrick’s alliance flew off the rails when the House impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton. The impeachment vote was heavily bipartisan; it was overwhelming. Paxton’s subsequent acquittal in the Senate trial brought out Patrick’s scorn for the decision delivered by the House … and he stated his contempt for the House immediately after Paxton’s acquittal.

Both sides are digging in. House GOP members dislike much of the voucher notion, much to the chagrin of GOP senators. Phelan backs his House colleagues, while Patrick stands with the Senate.

How do Democrats parlay all of this into political advantage that suits them? I suppose they can beat the drum over governmental incompetence, noting that Republicans are so damn entrenched in their dislike for each other that they let key legislation slip away. Then again, a united Republican Party would do Democrats little good … correct?

I am just one Texas resident who has grown tired of the Legislature’s inaction. I favor good government over no government. Republicans who own most of the Legislature’s seats — along with every statewide elected office — have continued to demonstrate big-league incompetence.

Democrats might have a way out of the darkness, but only if they can cobble together an agenda that doesn’t draw heavy fire from the demagogic wing of the Republicans.

State news

Regret seeps in

Occasionally I get a question from friends of mine who live far from Texas, where my family and I have called home for nearly 40 years.

“Do you regret moving there, given the politics of the state.”

I have been able to answer with a straight face, “No. I have made a nice living here as a journalist.  Besides, I don’t take my politics home with me at the end of the day.”

Some regret, though, is beginning to seep into my skull and into my heart. The source comes from the recent acquittal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by the Republican-controlled state Senate.

From my vantage point, it appeared to me the multiple charges leveled against Paxton looked credible. I had hoped the Senate would ratify the Texas House’s overwhelming impeachment of the AG. It didn’t. Senators acquitted Paxton on every one of the 16 counts for which he was put on trial.

I have concluded that in this state, Republican are ouster-proof, no matter the evidence that piles up against them. House impeachment trial managers presented testimony from former assistant AGs, from political pals of the individual who gained from his relationship with Paxton.

It went into the ears of senators and out the other side. Why? I guess because most of them are Republicans, just like the AG. They listened more to their partisan voices than to whether the AG disgraced his office, which is what the charges against him implied.

The GOP grip on the political machinery in this state is ironclad, yes? It is that partisan loyalty that resulted in Paxton’s acquittal.

The result disappointed me greatly, so much so that for the first time since 1984, when my wife and I moved here with our still-young sons, I cannot shake the pangs of regret.

education news

Support public education … not deplete it!

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called the Legislature back to work for its third special session this year, aiming to enact a law that allows Texans to divert their property taxes into private school systems.

Gov. Abbott can count me out!

I happen to want the Legislature to put more money into public education, not deplete its revenue stream by allowing Texans to purchase vouchers to spend on their kids’ education.

I am willing to concede that public education in Texas isn’t doing all it can do to provide our children with the best education possible. I see the test results and I am acutely aware that Texas students’ perform below the national averages on almost all educational disciplines. Much of that is cultural, some of it is economic.

It’s also because Texas public educators likely do not believe they have the support of the men and women in power who have it within their power to give teachers and administrators all the support they deserve.

Dammit to hell, anyway! Texas public education deserves better than it is getting from the state and, in some instances, from local school boards whose members have been bitten by the “anti-woke” bug. Public educators have found themselves distracted by pressure to ban books or to teach students only a “certain way” that adheres to some right-wing ideology.

I hate the notion of public education being kicked around like the proverbial political football. That is what is happening with the governor and legislators getting set to fast-track Texans away from public education.

As a believer in spending public money on public education, my sincere hope is that we can do more within government to improve the education we provide our children.

local news, State news

Dan Patrick: no surprises

The more I think about it, the less surprised I should be about Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s in-your-face reaction to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s acquittal in his two-week-long impeachment trial.

Patrick has called for a full audit of the expenses incurred during the impeachment of the attorney general that ended up in the laps of 30 Texas senators. Patrick accused the House of Representatives of acting in a political manner when it impeached Paxton on multiple charges of corruption.

When you think about, Patrick’s assertion is as absurd and laughable as it gets. Why is that? Because 121 House members voted to impeach Paxton, and that number includes a lot of Republicans who crossed the great chasm to impeach the AG. Which begs the question: Did the Republican House members fall victim to their partisan instincts? Hardly! They voted their conscience.

Yes, Patrick stayed out of the way during the trial. I am grasping for a reason, though, why he chose to level the audit threat against the House for doing its constitutional duty.

The dude got the outcome he seemingly wanted, which was an acquittal of Paxton, who became the subject of the GOP-led House impeachment probe after several top AG department legal eagles quit in disgust … and then blew the whistle on what they reportedly witnessed.

Why did it surprise me, then, when he started hurling accusations at epithets at the Texas House? I guess I expected more from someone who arguably occupies the most powerful elected office in Texas. Lt. Gov. Patrick damn sure didn’t need to throw his weight around … or so I thought.

Silly me.

local news, national news

Patrick fills me with regret

Dan Patrick quickly made me regret that I issued a compliment to him over the way he had presided over the impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The lieutenant governor, who presides over the Texas Senate, received a bouquet from me because he seemed to be impartial and unbiased in his handling of the trial in the Senate.

Then came Paxton’s acquittal by 30 senators … and what did Patrick do? He shot off his pie hole by declaring that the Texas House that had impeached Paxton had wasted Texans’ tax money by alleging that Paxton had committed impeachable offenses. Paxton was impeached overwhelmingly, I must add, in a bipartisan vote among House members.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a fellow Republican, was having none of that, telling Patrick that the lieutenant governor only has revealed his bias. I’ll go with Phelan on this one.

I hate having regrets over what I spew on this blog. But I’ll be damned if I am feeling them now, with Patrick suggesting that he was able to hide his bias.

Oh, and now he wants to conduct an audit of the money spent to impeach the attorney general and then put him on trial. What does he hope to find? That the money went to partisan interests whose mission was to enough evidence to convict the AG?

Sounds as if Patrick has ripped a page out of the congressional GOP caucus’s playbook as it seeks to find a reason — any reason — to impeach a U.S. president.

education news

School choice next up for debate

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There is something profoundly counterintuitive about asking people to pull their money out of public education and using that money to pay for others to enroll their children in private schools.

That, however, is what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants the Legislature to do when it meets in a special session next month. I cannot think of a more harebrained idea than this.

Those of us who ardent supporters of public education are going to fight this notion. It turns out that Democratic legislators along with their rural Republican colleagues oppose this idea. For the life of me I don’t understand why the state is seeking to cripple public education in this manner.

I read recently where the Amarillo Independent School District is losing students to private schools already. Texas funds its public school system based on enrollment, so now the state wants to accelerate that decline by giving parents taxpayer money to pull their children out of public schools and enrolling them in private institutions?

I don’t get it.

“There’s an easy way to get it done, and there’s a hard way,” Abbott said on a tele-town hall about the issue. “We will take it either way — in a special session or after an election.”

Abbott says special session on school choice coming in October | The Texas Tribune

That sounds like an ultimatum to me.

Public education is an investment I happen to be willing to make. That the governor would want Texas to make it easier to injure the public school systems in the state is an utterly astonishing policy decision.

State news

Fight is far from finished

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made his point with crystal clarity … which is that the fight among Texas Republicans is far from over in light of the acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton in his historic impeachment trial.

To be honest, I really shouldn’t give a rat’s backside of the looming GOP fight. I just fear it’s going to bring even more scorn to the state my wife and I chose to call home nearly 40 years ago.

Patrick, as president of the Texas Senate, presided over the AG’s trial and, to my thinking, did a credible job of staying out of the way. Then came the acquittal by 30 senators. That gave Patrick license, in his mind, to declare that the impeachment was a waste of time and money. It was nothing of the sort.

He blamed House Republicans — who voted overwhelmingly to join their Democratic colleagues to impeach Paxton — for what others have called a “kangaroo court” and a “sham.” The GOP controls both legislative chambers, so in Patrick’s view, most House members were “supposed” to join their Senate colleagues in giving Paxton a pass.

We are witnessing a Texas version of what is transpiring nationally with Republicans fighting among themselves, divided between those who are loyal to the rule of law and those who adhere to the doctrine of a political party.

It looks horrible at a national level … and it’s just as ugly as it plays out in Austin.

State news

Senators aren’t RINOs

Robert Nichols and Kelly Hancock already have been labeled Republicans In Name Only by the Ken Paxton acolytes who are angry at the state senators for voting their conscience in the just-completed Senate impeachment trial of the formerly suspended attorney general.

Sens. Nichols and Hancock did what they felt was the right thing to do, which was vote to convict Paxton on the impeachment articles tossed onto senators’ laps by the overwhelming House majority that impeached him for misconduct of his office.

I would laugh out loud at the notion that Nichols and Hancock are RINOs, except that it isn’t a funny accusation to make. Hancock, from Tarrant County, is considered one of the more conservative members of the Senate; Nichols, who hails from Jacksonville, isn’t far behind.

And yet … the Paxton crowd is going to tar these men for agreeing with their fellow House Republicans that Paxton committed misdeeds worthy of him getting tossed from office.

This signals arguably the start of a sort of “civil war” among the MAGA wing of the Texas GOP and the rest of the Republicans in the Legislature. The MAGA wing won the argument when the Senate acquitted Paxton and allowed him to return to work.

Nichols and Hancock aren’t up for re-election until 2026, which might explain why they showed the backbone missing among their Republican colleagues. Perhaps they see tempers cooling enough until the 2026 GOP primary season kicks into high gear.

Whatever. Neither man is a RINO, period. Given the state of the Republican Party these days, the RINO label just might stick to them.

That would be a shame.