Tag Archives: Texas Legislature

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Prop 6 looks like a water winner for state

Texas’ Legislature was kind to voters this election year by giving us “only” nine amendments to the Texas Constitution to consider.

One of them is of huge importance to the Panhandle. It’s Proposition 6, the “water amendment.”

I plan to vote for it.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/22/guest-column-vote-yes-prop-6-we-need-water/

Gov. Rick Perry’s column attached here tells us that the amendment would allow the state to tap into its Rainy Day Fund — which is a rather ironic twist, if you think about it — to develop water resources for the state.

Perry writes: “Our booming economy, rapidly growing population and the drought that has plagued most of the state for years are combining to stress our ability to meet our water demands. If we do nothing to address these needs, we place at risk the health and well-being of future generations.”

The Rainy Day Fund, Perry and other supporters note, won’t be imperiled. There will remain plenty of money left in the fund to use for other “emergencies.” By my way of thinking, I believe the state’s water shortage constitutes an emergency, particularly in regions of the state that have so little of it. That means the Panhandle.

Perry adds, “Because of our economic strength, the Rainy Day Fund has reached historic highs. Even with a one-time transfer of funds to address our water needs, we’ll still have an estimated $8.3 billion in reserve.”

Debra Medina, the tea party darling who ran for governor in 2010, opposes it. Her essay is attached here:

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/22/guest-column-vote-no-prop-6/

Of the two, Perry’s makes more sense. Proposition 6 is a reasonable approach to spending money the state has on hand to fend off actual emergencies.

A world without water? That constitutes a dire circumstance.

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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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Audie Murphy finally honored by state

I’ll admit to being a little slow on the uptake, but I have to give a huge salute to the Texas Legislature for doing something it should have done, oh, about 15 years ago.

It honored the late Audie Murphy — the most decorated soldier in Texas history — with the Texas Legislature Medal of Honor. Gov. Rick Perry made the award official on Aug. 19 when he signed House Concurrent Resolution 3, which the Legislature approved during its second special session this summer.

Finally!

The Legislature Medal of Honor was begun with the 1997 Legislature. Murphy should have been the first man so honored. But he wasn’t, for reasons no one has explained.

Murphy, who died in a 1971 plane crash, served in the Army during World War II. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in connection with his duty in France, when he killed an estimated 200 German soldiers in a single fire fight. His exploits became the subject of legend and lore. Murphy went on to become a film actor and portrayed himself in the film “To Hell and Back,” which told the story of his battlefield heroism.

The failure to honor Murphy, a native of Hunt County, was something of a comedy of errors over the years. The Legislature formerly only honored a single individual per session. It expanded the ranks to two per session in 2011. It’s as if his name kept slipping through the cracks as lawmakers pondered who they would honor.

This man has been honored by foreign governments in Europe, where he fought to liberate a continent from tyranny. When you look up the term “hero” in the dictionary, there ought to be a picture of Audie Murphy included in the definition provided.

The Texas Legislature has corrected a serious oversight by honoring Audie Murphy with this long-overdue recognition.

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Democrats waiting on Wendy

The Texas Democratic Party seems to be in a state of suspended animation.

Nothing is happening in preparation for the 2014 elections until a certain Democratic state senator announces whether she’s running for Texas governor next year.

Well, Ms. Wendy Davis? What’s it gonna be?

That’s the crux of a Texas Tribune report that notes how other Texas Democrats — what’s left of them — are too “chicken” to declare their intentions until state Sen. Davis decides her next course of action.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/27/texas-democrats-wait-davis-/

Davis, D-Fort Worth, has become the state’s newest Democratic superstar. I’m thinking she could be the next Ann Richards, the colorful and articulate former state treasurer who ran for governor in 1990, defeating Midland oil mogul Claytie Williams in one of the more rip-roarin’ campaigns in recent years.

Davis’s superstar credentials came as she led a filibuster in June that stopped temporarily a strict bill banning abortions in Texas after the 20th week of pregnancy. Davis talked for more than 13 hours before the clock ran out on the Texas Legislature, whose Republican majority wanted the bill to pass.

They brought it back in the second special session and it sailed through to Gov. Rick Perry desk.

Davis, however, now is acting very much as though she wants to run for governor. She’d be a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. A fall campaign, though, remains highly problematic in this heavily Republican state. Attorney General Greg Abbott is the GOP favorite; he faces former GOP chairman Tom Pauken in the upcoming Republican primary. There can be zero doubt that either Abbott or Pauken would be difficult for any Democrat to beat in the fall.

Decision day is coming soon for Wendy Davis. Whatever she decides about a governor’s race is sure to spring open the gates for other Democrats to decide what they’ll do. The question for the Texas Democratic Party well might be whether they’ll be able to field a slate of candidates up and down the ballot.

Someone such as Sen. Davis at the top of the ballot could go a long way toward luring other strong Democrats into the arena.

Let’s all stay tuned.

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Concealed carry’s perverted logic making sense now

I’m beginning to grasp the perverted logic behind Texas’s concealed-carry handgun law.

This morning, just before 11, knowledge of the law prevented me — I’m guessing — from making a potentially grievous mistake.

My wife and I were traveling west on 45th Avenue after running our weekly breakfast date and an appointment with our chiropractor. I was feeling all “adjusted” and ready for the day when we approached the intersection of 45th and Teckla.

Then it happened. Some moron — with a passenger riding shotgun in a large pickup — burst through the red light signal and came into the intersection right in front of us. I swerved suddenly into the right-hand lane of traffic, realizing after I’d done so that there was no one in that lane. Good thing, too.

I was so angry, I blurted out — inside the closed cab of our pickup — an exclamation followed by a very bad word. Kathy didn’t flinch. She didn’t say it, but I know she agreed with me.

I entertained briefly the idea of pulling up beside this guy and shouting some more bad words at him. Kathy talked me out of it.

She didn’t need to say a thing. The thought began running immediately through my mind that this brain-dead fruitcake could be packing a pistol in his truck. Thus, we have a lesson in the perverted logic of the concealed carry law, which the Texas Legislature enacted in 1995 — over my strenuous objections, I should add.

I was just a lonely voice in the wilderness, I guess. I did fear the thought of traffic-intersections shootouts when the Legislature was considering the law. Turns out my fears were overblown.

In fact, as today’s incident proves, it seems the opposite may be a consequence of the law.

Let there be no misunderstanding. I’m still not crazy about the law. However, I’ve come to accept the argument that the law — and the knowledge that we don’t know who’s carrying weapons — does foster better manners and some restraint among drivers when they’re nearly killed by moronic motorists.

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Smithee for Texas House speaker?

Et tu, John Smithee?

Paul Burka, the blogger/columnist for Texas Monthly, thinks state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, might be thinking about challenging Speaker Joe Straus as the Man of the House.

That would be a most interesting turn of events.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/brewing-speakers-race

It’s not that Smithee isn’t worthy of consideration. He’s been in the House since 1985 and is by far the senior member of the Texas Panhandle legislative delegation; I think he’s got something like 18 years on the second-ranking Panhandle legislator, Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, who was elected in 2003.

Burka thinks Smithee could be among a group of legislators looking to oust Straus, who I guess they believe has become too, um, “mainstream” for their liking. Smithee is set to emcee a fundraiser for an East Texas representative, Republican Kent Schaefer of Tyler.

I’m trying to figure out Smithee’s end game, if he has one, regarding the speakership.

I remember asking Smithee about the speaker’s office back when former Speaker Tom Craddick was being ousted from that high post. Smithee considered a run for it, but backed out. He said he disliked the political nature of the office. He preferred to be more of a legislative workhouse, staying in the background. He’s been known to walk across the aisle to work with Democrats, which I’ve become accustomed to believing is a big strike against any Republican serving in the state House of Reps.

I got the strong sense from Smithee — who I’ve known and admired since arriving in the Panhandle back in early 1995 — that he didn’t like the power brokering the speaker occasionally has to do. I’ve long thought of Smithee as a straight shooter who never was afraid to answer a direct question with a direct answer.

Smithee for speaker? Seems like a stretch to me. Then again, I haven’t been close to Smithee for some time. Maybe he’s been infected by the right-wing virus that’s been going around.

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Texas GOP goes off the rails

A Texas Republican lawmaker thinks state Sen. Wendy Davis should pay for one of three special sessions of the Texas Legislature?

Insanity has gripped this guy by the throat.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/01/2395671/wendy-davis-special-session-pay/

State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat, should reimburse the state for the cost of the special sessions because she led a Democratic filibuster of an anti-abortion bill that was approved during the second special legislative session.

“I am upset at the cost,” Capriglione said. “I think we need to remember why we are having this extra special session. One state senator, in an effort to capture national attention, forced this special session. I firmly believe that Sen. Wendy Davis should reimburse the taxpayers for the entire cost of the second special session. I am sure that she has raised enough money at her Washington, D.C., fundraiser to cover the cost.”

The special session cost the state about $2.4 million.

OK, then how about putting the Republican legislative caucus on the hook for the cost of the third special session after those folks killed a transportation funding bill that Gov. Rick Perry – another Republican – keeps insisting the state needs? Maybe the GOP caucus could pay for all the special sessions after insisting that the Legislature approve the restrictive anti-abortion bill that ignited the partisan firestorm in the first place?

Capriglione is proud that he isn’t accepting the $150 per diem payment for the special session. He purports to be a “fiscal conservative.” He also must not need the money.

Some legislators’ penchant for grandstanding knows no bounds.

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Quit loading up session agenda

Gov. Rick Perry has done the expected thing and called a third special session of the Texas Legislature.

Lawmakers cannot seem to find a solution to funding the state’s crumbling road-bridge-and-highway infrastructure, so the governor kept them in session until they get the job done.

But wait. A conservative Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Brian Birdwell of Granbury, wants the Legislature to approve legislation to allow people to carry concealed handguns on college campuses.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/07/birdwell-asks-perry-to-add-campus-carry-to-session/

This is another case of ideologues clogging up the legislative agenda with non-essential items. They fulfill some ideological need, but in the real world of real Texans, items such as this should fall far down on the pecking order of necessary legislation.

The infrastructure package got stalled in the first two special sessions. In the first one, everything came to a halt as the Legislature argued over whether to ban abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. In the second session, the Republicans who run both legislative chambers couldn’t come up with a funding formula to pay for road, bridge and highway improvements. So here we are, back for a third time with Perry putting just the highway funding item on the agenda.

That should be enough to occupy our citizen-lawmakers’ time, yes? Apparently not, according to Birdwell, who wants to swallow up more time arguing the merits of concealed handgun carry at, say, West Texas A&M University and Amarillo College.

The men and women who serve in the Legislature are part-timers. They need to get back to their day jobs. I fear a fourth special session if they don’t take care of our highways.

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Video of shrinking lake is mind-blowing

Lake Meredith used to be a substantial body of water.

It now needs to be renamed to, say, Puddle Meredith.

http://amarillo.com/news/texas-news/2013-07-24/drought-keeping-lake-levels-down-time-lapse-video-lake-meredith-decline

The time-lapse video of the lake shows what the punishing drought has done to this once-magnificent body of water about an hour’s drive north of Amarillo.

The feds opened Sanford Dam in 1965 along the Canadian River. It filled up with river water, reaching a maximum depth of 103 feet in the early 1970s. It’s been downhill, so to speak, ever since.

The water levels got so low in 2011 that the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority stopped pumping water from the lake and shipping it to cities served by CRMWA. Marinas have closed. The lake level now stands — last I saw it — at around 27 feet.

The Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, which was created as a place for people to take their boats for a little water-related recreation now is a place for folks to camp, hike and do other things on dry land. I reckon some folks can still take their boats onto the water, what’s left of it.

I’m still waiting for an answer to this question: Did anyone foresee this immense water depletion occurring when they built the dam in the first place?

And was it all a wasted effort?

Amazing. Simply amazing.