Tag Archives: Texas Legislature

local news, political news, State news

Texas’s newest residents get stiffed

Texas is going to get two more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Why? Because our state grew significantly during the past 10 years.

The population boom was fueled by more African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians flocking to the state. The word is that these folks generally vote Democratic. So, it was believed that the state’s changing demography was going to make the state more, um, divided politically.

Well, the Legislature took care of that by gerrymandering the new congressional and legislative districts to ensure that the Republican Party maintains its chokehold on power.

The Legislature takes command of the redistricting effort every decade. The 2020 census shows the state achieving additional power in Congress with those two new seats. However, Republicans are big winners, given the way the Legislature reconfigured all those boundaries.

Collin County, where I now reside, was turned into an even heavier GOP-friendly place; Collin County voted narrowly for Donald Trump in 2020, but would have voted significantly more for the ex-POTUS had the new borders been in effect.

I am scratching my noodle on this one. Is this the way “representative democracy” is supposed to work?

I think not.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Texas Democrats take another gut punch

Ryan Guillen no longer is a Democrat, having switched party affiliation to Republican.

That’s a big deal? You betcha. Especially  when the party-switcher is a longtime Democratic legislator from South Texas who told his former party leaders that the Democratic Party has abandoned him; so he is becoming a Republican.

This is grim news for Texas Democratic Party officials who keep telling the world about how the tide in Texas is turning from Republican Red to Democratic Blue. But … is it?

RealClearPolitics reports: While Guillen is a state lawmaker whose switch won’t impact which party holds power in Washington, there’s one sign that this may not be an isolated example: At least nine congressional House Democrats have  announced they are not seeking reelection next year. More are expected to follow.

As for the impact on the state’s political fortunes, Guillen’s switcheroo seems to portend something ominous for a party that contends the changing Texas demography suggests that Democrats are on the rise and Republicans are sinking.

I am not so sure about that. Just yet anyway.

Guillen is a Texas Latino who believes the Democratic Party has taken him for granted along with those who share his ethnicity.

Texas Party Switcher Is Latest Ominous Sign for Democrats | RealClearPolitics

I used to call the Golden Triangle home. The Triangle is in deep Southeast Texas, where Democrats until the early 1990s continued to occupy virtually every county elected office in sight. That began changing about the time I moved from Beaumont to the other corner of the state, in Republican-heavy Amarillo.

Republicans now occupy every statewide office in Texas and a heavy majority of the local offices as well. Dallas County, next door to us in our new home in Collin County, remains a heavily Democratic bastion.

So, if Democrats intend to regain any semblance of influence in Texas, they need to heed the admonition of one of its veteran former legislative representatives: stop taking your core constituency for granted.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

How about cell phone ban enforcement?

My wife and I live in a house that is about 50 feet past a sign that marks the end of a “school zone” in Princeton, Texas.

I am mentioning that because of something I witness repeatedly: the sight of drivers using hand-held devices while they pass through a zone where such activity is illegal.

Indeed, using hand-held devices while driving a motor vehicle is against state law. The Texas Legislature made it so in 2019 and Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law. It was a long slog to get it enacted. Then-Gov. Rick Perry vetoed an earlier bill on grounds that it infringed on driver’s “personal liberty.” Sheesh.

My point is that law enforcement officers surely have a headache trying to enforce this law. It’s one thing, I suppose, to pull someone over on a suspicion of illegal activity. Police officers I know have told me over many years they can act only when they witness a crime being committed.

So, does a police officer pull someone over when they witness that motorist yapping on a cell phone that he or she is holding up to his or her ear? I would hope that would be the case.

My witnessing of such law-breakers driving through my neighborhood, though, suggest to me that enforcement of this law isn’t a sufficient deterrent against motorists from fumbling with a cell phone while driving a two-ton motor vehicle … in a school zone!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Hoping the grid holds up

My ol’ trick knee is acting up again.

It’s throbbing and telling me I ought to worry about whether the Texas electrical grid is going to hold up if we get another winter blast like the one that paralyzed us this past February.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas grid froze up. It sent millions of Texas households — including ours — into the dark while the temperature hovered near or below zero. We came through OK. Our water supply in Princeton shut down for a little while, but that recovered, too.

The Legislature was supposed to hustle to ensure that ERCOT’s grid was winterized to prevent future catastrophes. I have not heard much from lawmakers about what they did to make sure that the “reliability” of ERCOT holds up this coming winter.

I wonder aloud about this because the temperatures are falling in North Texas, as they are expected to do. We’re well into autumn and the first day of winter is only about five weeks away.

The trick knee, though, keeps me wondering whether the state has done what it was supposed to do or whether it was too worried about banning abortion and suppressing Texans’ ability to vote.

We’ve got some pressing issues out here, lawmakers. Make damn sure you pay attention to us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

State news

Legislature showed a bit of courage

Texas legislators surely did not distinguish themselves during their three special sessions. The abortion ban, the voter suppression bill and redistricting are among the low points legislators played out.

It wasn’t all bad, though. I want to offer this example of a bit of political courage.

The Texas Legislature did not act on Gov. Greg Abbott’s demand that it approve a bill that would have given Abbott authority to tell businesses they cannot issue vaccine mandates for employees.

The Legislature dug in on that one. To which I offer a hand-clap, albeit it’s a bit muted … more like a golf clap.

Abbott is supposed to be a pro-business Republican. His effort to ban business owners from issuing vaccine mandates is about as anti-business as it gets. The vaccines are aimed at preventing human beings from being struck down by the COVID-19 coronavirus, which has killed more than 700,000 Americans.

Happily, the rate of infection and death are decreasing. Abbott is likely now to join his pal in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, in taking a victory lap for the result.

I am just glad to see the Legislature exhibit a touch of courage in standing up to Abbott’s goofy notion that government can tell private business owners how to run their businesses … and protect the people who work for them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump

Trump might ‘primary’ Texas speaker? Huh?

 REUTERS/Octavio Jones

Did I hear this correctly … that the 45th president of the U.S. might want to “primary” Texas House speaker Dade Phelan because of the way he is running the state House of Representatives?

Phelan is a Beaumont Republican serving his first term as the Man of the House. He succeeded another GOP speaker, Dennis Bonnen, who got himself into a jam after he lied about whether he would sacrifice fellow GOP lawmakers in the 2020 legislative campaign.

Donald Trump just needs to butt the hell out of Texas politics. We’ve got more than our fair share of nut jobs, fruit cakes and yahoos. We don’t need the former Yahoo in Chief meddling in our state’s business.

Phelan isn’t my kind of pol, but he is working under extreme pressure, given Democrats’ willingness and ability to stop the Legislature from doing its business, which they did already this year … and deservedly so.

I am just weary in the extreme of seeing the 45th POTUS’s name attached to this and/or that political skirmish.

He annoys me in the extreme.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Government applies medical pressure?

Ron Paul, a former member of Congress from Texas — and one-time Republican presidential candidate — has made an intriguing and likely unintended case against a hideous Texas law that essentially outlaws abortion.

Paul is a physician and is the father of a sitting U.S. senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky. This item showed up on my Facebook news feed.

I’ll venture a presumption that the statement is intended to refer to President Biden’s mandates to require vaccinations against the COVID-19 virus. Think, though, about the overarching message contained in the statement attributed to Dr. Paul.

“Freedom over one’s physical person is the most basic freedom of all and people in a free society should be sovereign over their own bodies.”

Therein lies the most essential argument possible against that Texas law that has become the subject of lawsuits seeking to overturn it. The Legislature passed the law that Gov. Greg Abbott signed that prohibits women from obtaining an abortion after being pregnant for six weeks. Many women — arguably most women — don’t even know they are pregnant six weeks after conception. The law’s intent is to take the teeth out of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in January 1973.

Let’s be clear about something. This law will not prevent abortion. Women will continue to terminate pregnancies. Many of them might seek “back-alley” procedures that could do them terrible physical harm. The law is ghastly and it is the product of ham-handed legislative tyrants who seek to exert control over women and the decisions they make regarding their own bodies.

Ultraconservative legislators have seized the moment in Texas with this legislation. They have gotten their way, at least for the time being. The state, however, does not “own our bodies.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Gerrymandering to commence

A now-deceased Republican state senator from Amarillo, Teel Bivins, once told me why he allegedly hated the once-every-decade chore that fell to the Legislature: redistricting.

He said it provided “Republicans the chance to eat their young.”

I am not not at all sure what Bivins by that quip. I wish now I had asked him in the moment to explain himself. But … whatever.

The next redistricting effort is about to commence in Austin. Texas is going to get two more U.S. House seats, thanks to rapid population growth, particularly among those of Hispanic descent.

What happens over the course of the next 30 days or so is anyone’s guess. Texas Republicans run the Legislature. They’re going to draw those districts in a way that enables them to keep a firm grip on power. Hey, it’s part of the process. Democrats did the same thing when they ran the Legislature.

The GOP lawmakers are going to gerrymander the living daylights out of these districts. They’ll bob and weave along streets in order to keep as many GOP-leaning voters as possible within certain legislative or congressional jurisdictions.

Bivins once talked about the need to seek “community of interest” districts. He once told me of his disliking the gerrymander process. He didn’t do anything to stop it, as near as I can recall.

You may count me as one American patriot who thinks that gerrymandering stinks to high heaven. I also believe the Legislature ought to give this task up to an independent, non-political body. That’s just me talking.

As lawmakers said in a lengthy article in the Sunday Dallas Morning News, this process is as “bare-knuckled as it gets” in Austin.

The Dallas Morning News (dallasnews.com)

Bring plenty of bandages, legislators.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

In search of a community identity

My wife and I live in a growing North Texas community that, as near as I can tell, is searching to create an identity for itself.

Princeton doesn’t seem to have a community ID. I don’t hear much talk about finding one. Having lived there for more than two years — and we intend for it to be our “forever home” — it’s just a feeling I get when I venture around the city to run errands or to do whatever it is semi-retired guys do.

The city will have an election in November to take a baby step toward establishing an identity. Princeton will ask voters to approve the establishment of a citizens committee to draft a home-rule charter. The aim is to reel in the reins of power to City Hall and to set the governing rules right here at home. Princeton, which now is home to more than 18,000 residents (and counting!) is governed under “general law,” meaning that the Legislature sets the rules for how this exploding community governs itself.

City Makes Another Run At Home-Rule Charter (ketr.org)

Princeton has tried four times to establish a home rule charter ever since it crossed the 5,000-resident threshold established by the Texas Constitution. Residents who don’t even live in the city have spearheaded efforts to defeat the measure all four times; the anti-charter cabal lives in what is called the city’s “extraterritorial jurisdiction.”

Princeton needs to establish the identity I sense is missing. There is no bustling downtown district. City Hall is going to move from its paltry location along U.S. 380 just west of Second Avenue to a shiny new complex just east of Princeton High School. The municipal complex is going to be a thing of beauty.

Princeton To Welcome New Government Complex (ketr.org)

I don’t have the precise answer as to how Princeton establishes its community ID or how it defines it. I do believe, though, that a thriving community must be more than a sea of rooftops under which families live after working all day. Bedroom communities are fine. I just want more for the city where my wife and I plan to live for the proverbial duration.

Is the home rule charter election set for November a small step toward that end? I do hope so. I want to see take the next step in the spring when it asks voters to decide on the future of a home rule charter for Princeton.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

medical news

Pro-choice and pro-life? Yep!

The debate over the hideous Texas anti-abortion law has me tied in knots. Sort of.

Some of my more conservative friends and family members — yes, I have many of them on the other side of the great political divide — might be wondering why I would be so adamantly opposed to the law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

I am both pro-choice and pro-life on abortion.

No. I do not see any contradiction. I will explain.

I could never provide advice for a woman to get an abortion. I am not wired that way. The issue, for starters, is none of my damn business. The decision rests solely with the woman, her partner, her religious counselor and with God Almighty.

To that extent, I consider myself pro-life.

However, the bigger issue for me is the meddlesome nature of legislation that seeks to dictate to a woman how she can manage affairs of her body. Texas legislators have crossed far into territory where they should not tread.

The law in Texas prohibits a woman from obtaining an abortion any earlier than six weeks into her pregnancy. It doesn’t make any exceptions for rape or incest.

The ghastliest part of the law is that it allows total strangers to rat out a woman if he or she learns she is going to get an abortion. We have created a vigilante corps in Texas. It allows these strangers to meddle where they damn sure don’t belong.

A friend of mine in Amarillo once said he believed in the Biblical theory of Earth’s creation and in the theory of evolution.

What’s more, I once saw a sticker that asked: “Aren’t you glad that the Virgin Mary was pro-life?” Hmm. Well, she also was pro-choice because she “chose” to give birth to the baby who gave Christianity its name.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com