Tag Archives: Rick Perry

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Can you say ‘gig ’em’ in Hebrew?

I was thrilled to see the Texas Tribune story about Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp’s planned announcement that A&M was going to the Middle East to open a “peace campus.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/22/texas-m-announce-plans-branch-campus-israel/

The Aggies are going to set up a branch campus in Nazareth, Israel, of all places. It’s the result of some communication between Sharp and Manuel Trajtenberg, an Israeli economist who’s had this idea of bridging the distance between his country and ours.

I’m fascinated for a personal reason. I got to spend some time in Nazareth in 2009 as part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team. I learned that Nazareth over the years has become a primarily Arab community. Much of the Jewish population has moved into the suburbs around Nazareth, leaving the city proper to the Arabs.

It’s also a city with some magnificent Christian antiquities, such as the Church of the Annunciation, where Scripture tells us Mary learned she would give birth to the Son of God.

Now the Aggies are going to set up a campus in this holy city, bringing modernity to a community that is steeped in ancient tradition.

The Tribune reported that Sharp visited Israel earlier and had lunch with Trajtenberg, whom the Tribune described as “an economist who has chaired the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education in Israel for about four years. In that role, Trajtenberg has worked to increase access to higher education for, among other groups, the ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities.

“’There is no major academic institution in any Arab city or town within Israel,’ he observed in an interview with the Tribune.”

The announcement hasn’t been made official just yet. Sharp, along with fellow Aggie, Gov. Rick Perry, and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, will make it official on Wednesday.

This is a big deal for all parties concerned. Texas A&M University is establishing a tremendous foothold in a place where deep faith and bitter conflict exist in close proximity to each other.

Is there a better place than Nazareth to establish a university campus dedicated to peace?

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Texas ballot just got hilarious

Texans will have no shortage of entertainment next year as the midterm election gets into full swing.

The latest bit of entertainment news to hit the Lone Star State is the pending announcement that Kinky Friedman will run next as a Democrat for state agriculture commissioner.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/12/kinky-friedman-ag-commissioner-democrat/

Is he a successful farmer and rancher? No. Does he have extensive agriculture business experience? Um, no. Does he sell livestock at auctions? Again, nope.

Friedman is a humorist, author, sometimes politician and philosopher. He’s run for Texas governor, as an independent and once sought the agriculture commissioner’s office as a Democrat just four years ago.

I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing him, back in 2006 when he ran for governor. He was so entertaining and engaging and, frankly, forthright with most of his answers that my boss suggested he might actually consider recommending him for the governor’s office. Kinky didn’t get our newspaper’s endorsement.

He says he’s running this time as a Democrat because of state Sen. Wendy Davis’s gubernatorial campaign. Friedman thinks Davis is going to breathe excitement in the party this coming election year and he wants to be a part of it.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether he’ll be able to articulate a serious and sensible agriculture policy for the state.

I will bet real money, however, that Kinky Friedman’s campaign promises will not be carbon copies of what we’ve heard from Todd Staples, Susan Combs or Rick Perry. I’m thinking he’ll sound more like the last true-blue character we’ve elected as agriculture commissioner, Jim Hightower.

Bring it, Kinky.

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Immigration becoming signature Texas issue?

I am beginning to sense a centerpiece issue emerging in the race for Texas lieutenant governor.

The issue is immigration and it may reveal which of the four major Republican candidates for the state’s No. 2 elected office will become the most effective demagogue on it.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/10/todd-staples-next-immigration-headache/

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples is one of the Big Four. He served in the state Senate, representing an East Texas district. He has become entangled in a vote he reportedly cast in 2001 to allow immigrants to use foreign passports and birth certificates as valid identification to obtain a Texas driver’s license.

Staples says he doesn’t remember casting such a vote. Really, commissioner? If you did, then it’s on the record in some form.

He now says such allowances are a “grave mistake” and he opposes them.

The other three GOP big dogs — state Sen. Dan Patrick, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — also are running as quickly as they can from another issue: allowing those who came into Texas as children of those who entered the state illegally in-state tuition rates to attend public colleges and universities.

Patrick ripped that can of worms wide open when he said he is the “only candidate” to oppose such a thing. The other three pounced on him for that declaration; Patterson called him a “liar.” Dewhurst said he’s never supported in-state tuition for undocumented residents.

I happen to think these men are acting like disgusting demagogues on this issue. I believe granting such a waiver is humane and compassionate. So does Gov. Rick Perry, whose support for the waiver got him in trouble as he campaigned briefly for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

Immigration reform well might determine just how strong the tea party influence is within the Texas Republican Party. Dewhurst learned the hard way when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 when he got “Cruzed” by the guy who beat him in the primary, Sen. Ted Cruz. Dewhurst, who I once thought was a serious and studious politician, is now turning hard right on immigration to avoid getting outflanked yet again.

Perhaps another signature issue will emerge. For now, I’m thinking it’s going to be immigration.

It’s going to get ugly.

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Immigrants’ tuition becomes key issue

I am appalled at the four major Republican candidates for Texas lieutenant governor.

First, state Sen. Dan Patrick runs an ad alleging he is the “only” candidate for that office who opposes in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Not true, say the other three.

The incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, says he’s never supported in-state tuition for these students; Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who served in the Senate and voted for the issue in 2001, now says he opposes it; Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has called Patrick a liar and says he never backed the issue.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/08/brief-texas-political-news-oct-8-2013/

These guys make me sick.

The only prominent Texas Republican who stands out on this issue is Gov. Rick Perry.

Perry and other immigration reformers have supported granting in-state tuition privileges to Texas high school graduates and college applicants who happened to have moved here as children of parents who came here illegally.

It wasn’t their fault that their parents entered the state without legal documentation. They merely grew up and came of age as Texans. They attended high school, they graduated and applied for entrance into a Texas college or university. They have been accepted and plan to continue their lives as productive residents of the only place they’ve known as home.

Why punish these young people because of something their parents did?

Yet, we hear now from the four GOP candidates for Texas lieutenant governor that none of them supports this compassionate measure. They’re trying to out-menace each other at the expense of young Texans seeking to make good lives for themselves.

Disgraceful.

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Patrick tells only part of in-state tuition story

State Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston has launched his first TV ad touting his candidacy for Texas lieutenant governor.

Wouldn’t you know it, he distorts a critical issue in this still-developing campaign. He said he is the “only candidate to oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/10/patrick-launches-border-security-tv-ad/

Good for him.

Except to say in-state tuition applies to all “illegal immigrants” ignores a key provision that’s been supported by the likes of former Gov. George W. Bush, current Gov. Rick Perry and other reasonable Republicans. The provision applies to those immigrants who came to Texas as children, those who were brought here by their parents, those who have grown up as Texans.

Back in late 2011, when Perry was running for the GOP presidential nomination, he got in trouble with the far right of his party when he spoke out in favor of granting in-state tuition to those immigrants. He stood firm against the criticism, to his great credit.

I see nothing wrong with granting those Texans who came here as children and who qualify academically for entrance into our many fine public colleges and universities the same tuition rates as granted to other Texans.

They have grown up as Texans and Americans. Give them the education they deserve at a price they can afford.

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Davis talking to Texans … about education

Wendy Davis’s campaign for Texas governor is just now getting started.

I’ll be waiting with bated breath to hear what she thinks about a lot of issues not related to abortion — the issue that catapulted her to national fame.

The Fort Worth Democratic state senator declared her gubernatorial candidacy this past week, spilling the beans on one of the worst-kept secrets in recent state political history. Seems as if everyone in Texas knew she would run before she announced it.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/05/wendy-davis-tiptoes-around-government-shutdown/

I’ll go out on a limb here and say she’ll be the Democratic nominee next spring when they count all the primary ballots. Attorney General Greg Abbott appears headed for the Republican nomination, unless underdog GOP firebrand Tom Pauken pulls a rabbit out of his hat.

Davis is beginning to sound like the “education candidate” for governor. She pledges to restore some of the money cut from public education under Gov. Rick Perry’s watch. Seems as though Perry sought budget cuts to help balance the budget and the Legislature obliged by cutting public education. That was a curious decision, given the need for the state to boost public education in an increasingly competitive environment with other states.

Wendy Davis is talking now about restoring those cuts.

Remember the filibuster this past summer she launched against an anti-abortion bill? Well, she said this week she also filibustered a proposal to cut public education in 2011. That one didn’t get nearly the attention the 2013 filibuster did.

I am betting Davis will choose to highlight the earlier gabfest in support of education as she travels the state in search of votes.

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Abortion becomes ultimate wedge issue

An editorial in the Monday Amarillo Globe-News poses an interesting — but patently unfair — question about a Texas state senator and probable candidate for Texas governor.

“(W)hat does state Sen. Wendy Davis bring to the table other than support for abortion?”

That was the question. Davis, D-Fort Worth, is likely to announce this week that she’ll seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2014. She’s a star in a Texas Democratic Party that has been bereft of shining lights for the past two decades.

I’ll talk later about Davis’s candidacy but I will discuss abortion as a campaign issue.

Davis filibustered a Republican-sponsored bill this past summer that would have placed serious restrictions on women’s ability to seek an abortion. She won a temporary victory and gained considerable political mileage from that fleeting triumph. The Legislature approved the bill in a subsequent special session and Gov. Rick Perry signed it into law.

Does she “support” abortion? One would have to assume that Davis’s filibuster was meant to signal a support for the procedure on demand, for whatever reason. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard Wendy Davis declare her “support” for abortion. What she opposes, I’m able to surmise, are laws that restrict women from making that choice for themselves.

Indeed, it is unfair to ascribe “support for abortion” to Sen. Davis, if one is to look at her own history. She became pregnant while she was unmarried. She chose to give birth to her child. She reared that child to adulthood and along the way earned a good education and has carved out a nice career in public service.

Yet the abortion debate too often turns on these wrong-headed assumptions anti-abortion rights folks make about those who favor the rights of women to end a pregnancy. They often suggest that if you believe a women should have the right to make that choice then you are by definition “pro-abortion.”

The discussion should be far more nuanced than that. Sadly, it’s not. Abortion has become arguably the most divisive wedge issue in American politics.

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Wendy is in, apparently … reportedly

The semi-official word is out that state Sen. Wendy Davis is going to run for governor of Texas in 2014.

That’s according to sources who’ve spilled the beans to news outlets such as Politico that the Fort Worth Democrat is going to seek the state’s highest office.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/wendy-davis-texas-2014-97410.html

This is a good thing for Texas.

The state hasn’t witnessed a truly exciting governor’s race since 1994, when a Republican upstart named George W. Bush challenged Democratic incumbent Ann Richards — and beat her. That contest actually was the last in a lengthy line of interesting Texas governor’s races.

It’s been downhill, interest-wise, ever since.

Davis vs. The Republican (probably Attorney General Greg Abbott) would gin up interest the state hasn’t seen in two decades.

Will the Democrat break the Republicans’ stranglehold on statewide offices? Well, I’m thinking the odds remain pretty long. Abbott has the money and the appropriate party label. Texas has swung so far to the right politically that it seems highly unlikely anyone to the left of Genghis Khan can win anything in this state.

If anyone can do it, Wendy Davis — who made herself famous nationally with her one-woman filibuster this summer of an anti-abortion bill — might be the candidate. She’s smart (despite what some of Abbott’s supporters have said over social media), telegenic (which is code for attractive) and well-spoken.

I’m not going to bet my next Happy Meal on Davis’s chances on beating The Republican. I would be delighted, though, to see some genuine excitement in the campaign for what once was considered a “weak political office.” That, of course, changed under the interminable reign of Gov. Rick Perry.

The next governor is going to inherit an office that’s been strengthened considerably because of the way Perry consolidated his power. Texans should pay attention whether Davis runs or stays out.

If she runs, my guess is that we’ll all be paying careful attention.

We’ll know on Oct. 3 when Davis is expected to make her intentions known. Stay tuned. This is likely to get fun.

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Patrick seeks more partisan Senate

There can be no misunderstanding — zero, none — of what state Sen. Dan Patrick wants to do to the Texas Senate if Texans elect him lieutenant governor next month.

He wants to destroy the bipartisan atmosphere that often has helped govern the state’s upper legislative chamber. That effort, in my view, would be a bad thing for Texas.

Texas Tribune editor in chief Evan Smith’s interview with Patrick revealed the senator’s plans quite clearly.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/09/19/triblive-patrick-on-democratic-chairmen/

Patrick is running against the incumbent, David Dewhurst, as well as against Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples in a crowded Republican primary. I cannot predict who will win this contest, but it’s looking more and more as though Dewhurst is among the underdogs in the fight for the man’s own seat.

Patrick recently chastised Dewhurst for selecting six Democrats to chair the Senate’s 18 committees, which is roughly proportional to the number of Democrats serving in the Senate. The count today is 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Dewhurst, therefore, has doled out chairmanships fairly, correct? Not so, says Patrick, R-Houston, who told Smith he might place, oh, maybe two Democrats in chairmanships … or he may select none for the 2015 Legislature.

Dewhurst, to his discredit, failed to fight back against that criticism, suggesting in a gutless response instead that the Democrats he placed in chairmanships led committees of little legislative consequence.

The lieutenant governor, whether it was Dewhurst, or Rick Perry before him, or Bob Bullock or Bill Hobby, all strived to maintain a semblance of collegiality and bipartisanship in the Senate, over which the lieutenant governor presides. That’s why they cross party lines to place senators from the “other” party in key leadership roles. Dewhurst and Perry, both Republicans, have been faithful to that tradition, as were Bullock and Hobby, two Democrats.

That spirit also has produced the two-thirds rule, which requires any bill to have at least 21 votes before it is decided by a full Senate vote. Many Republican senators, such as Kel Seliger of Amarillo, have said they support the two-thirds rule.

Patrick does not appear to have any notion of preserving that collegial spirit in the Senate.

For my money, that’s one key reason why he shouldn’t be elected lieutenant governor of Texas.

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Sen. Davis good to go … for governor?

I’m wrong about these things more often than I’m right, but it’s looking to me as though Wendy Davis is going to run for Texas governor next year.

The Fort Worth Democratic state senator will make her plans known on Oct. 3.

What’s interesting to me is the suspense she is building into the announcement. See the link here:

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/09/wendy-davis-to-announce-plans-on-oct-3/

If she were to announce that she is going to seek re-election to her Senate seat, my hunch is that she’d just say so: “I’ve decided, after careful consideration and prayer, that I will not be a candidate for governor and will seek re-election to Senate District 10 and will seek to continue to serve my Fort Worth constituents.”

There. That would be it. Over and done.

But she’s asking her supporters to spread the word to others who they think would like to be the “first to know” her plans.

That feels to me as though a run for governor is in the wind.

All the excitement in this contest so far has been on the Republican side. Attorney General Greg Abbott is the odds-on favorite to be nominated by the GOP over former state Republican Party chairman Tom Pauken of Dallas. (Full disclosure: I’ve known Pauken personally for more than 25 years and I am pulling for him to at least make a contest of his party’s primary fight.)

It could be that the excitement quotient is going to shift dramatically toward the Democratic primary if Wendy Davis answers the bell. Davis burst onto the national scene with her dramatic filibuster of an anti-abortion bill in the waning hours of the Legislature’s first special session.

Will she win next fall?

That remains the multimillion-dollar question, given that’s how much it’s going to cost the next person who will become governor to succeed Rick Perry.

Texas remains a deeply ruby-red state, in the vise grip of Republican officeholders. Texans have shown a propensity in recent election cycles to elect Republicans over more qualified Democrats just because of their party affiliation. But, hey, Texans did the same thing in reverse back when Democrats were the top dog.

Sen. Davis would surely energize a moribund political party that’s been whipped so often it’s lost much of its will to win.

Please, though, don’t hold me to any of this. We’ll just wait for Wendy to give us the word.