Tag Archives: Texas Senate

local news, political news, State news

Sen. Seliger gets needed challenge

I used to drive former state Rep. David Swinford borderline batty with my occasional columns about the need for incumbents to get challenged at every election cycle.

My argument always has been that political incumbents at every level need to defend their record against legitimate challengers to their incumbency. The Dumas (Texas) Republican legislator understood that argument … but he still would express some mild (and good-natured) displeasure at my stating it.

One of Swinford’s colleagues — Republican state Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo — is getting a serious challenge again this coming year. Regular readers of this blog know that I want Seliger to win his party’s nomination, which is tantamount to election in the GOP-friendly Texas Panhandle.

But he’s going to have to work for it. Which I consider to be good (a) for the incumbent and (b) for the cause of good government.

Former Midland Mayor Mike Canon is stepping up once more to challenge Seliger. The two of them faced off in 2014. The race was close, but Seliger emerged victorious. This year, Amarillo business owner Victor Leal has joined the Republican primary lineup.

The quality of Leal’s candidacy remains to be seen. Canon’s approach four years ago was to talk in TEA Party clichĂ©s, talking points and platitudes. He still garnered a lot of votes.

That’s all OK, though.

Seliger has served the sprawling Texas Senate District 31 he has represented since 2004 quite well, in my estimation. That doesn’t mean he should get a free pass.

Representative democracy demands a stout challenge when the opportunity presents itself. It’s doing so in this legislative contest.

Whoever emerges victorious in this primary fight — and I do hope it’s Seliger — figures to be tempered by the difficult campaign he will have endured. That’s good for state government.

local news

Seliger expects tough race … really, do ya think?

I don’t mean to disparage my friend Kel Seliger, but the Texas state senator has demonstrated a stunning command of the obvious.

He thinks he’s in for a tough fight for re-election to the Senate, given the presence of two Republican Party primary challengers ready to run against him in the spring of 2018. One of them came within 4 percentage points of defeating Seliger in 2014.

Seliger held a town hall meeting at Amarillo College’s downtown campus and received words of support from those in attendance.

I’ve already declared my preference that Seliger be re-elected to the seat he’s held since 2004. Seliger is smart, well-versed in Legislature-speak, has a command of the legislative process, is a traditional Republican conservative and has ascended to a leadership position among the 31 members of the Texas Senate.

However, he is facing some potentially stiff headwinds as he prepares for his re-election campaign.

Many Texas Republicans seem to think Seliger isn’t conservative enough. I am uncertain what constitutes a sufficiently conservative Republican in Texas. I guess it involves those who base their public policy on religious principles, who wear their faith on their shirt sleeves. Seliger isn’t wired that way. Instead, he is campaigning for re-election on a platform that seeks to keep power invested mostly in local communities, rather than the state. That sounds pretty damn conservative to me.

Former Midland Mayor Mike Canon is making another run at Seliger’s seat, along with Amarillo restauranteur Victor Leal. Canon is a TEA Party favorite, which I suppose makes him more amenable to the likes of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who is no friend of Sen. Seliger. Canon had the support in 2014 of ultraconservative political activist Michael Quinn Sullivan and this time has the backing of Empower Texas, another conservative outfit that has it in for Seliger.

Leal’s backing? I’m not yet sure where his strength lies. He’s got some good name identification in Amarillo, owing to his successful business venture. He’s a former Muleshoe mayor who made a run for the Texas House in 2011; he was defeated by Four Price for the District 87 vacated when David Swinford retired from public life.

Senate District 31 is one of the most sprawling districts in Texas. It has grown over the years as Texas’s population has shifted east and south of the Panhandle. But through many decades, SD 31 has been represented by a Panhandle resident; Seliger was preceded by Teel Bivins, who was preceded by Bill Sarpalius, who was preceded by Bob Price, who came to office after Max Sherman.

Do you get my drift here?

Yet, Seliger has done a good job of acquainting himself with the needs of the South Plains and the Permian Basin.

Does he face a tough fight for re-election? Well, yeah! He does!

This GOP primary well might emerge as one of the most-watched contests in Texas in 2018. I hope Sen. Seliger is ready for the major-league scrap.

local news, political news

Seliger makes it official: He’s running again for the Senate

I am heartened to learn that Kel Seliger is going to run for re-election to the Texas Senate.

The Amarillo Republican has two GOP primary opponents, one of whom he defeated in 2014; the other Republican challenger comes from the heart of Seliger’s base.

Seliger will face former Midland Mayor Mike Canon and Amarillo businessman Victor Leal.

I watched the Seliger-Canon primary fight up close four years ago. It shouldn’t have been a contest. It turned out to be one. Canon, a lawyer by profession, is a TEA Party favorite. He speaks in platitudes and clichĂ©s. Seliger demonstrated clearly in the 2014 primary campaign a firm grasp of the details of legislating, of state law and of how government works.

Canon managed to split the vast District 31 Republican Party primary vote nearly in half, losing the primary by about 4 percentage points to Seliger.

Now we have Leal entering the race. I don’t yet know what kind of campaign Leal is going to run. He’s got some good name ID, given all the radio advertising he runs promoting his restaurant. Seliger will have to deal with that in some form or fashion.

Seliger’s platform will stress “local control.” He said in a statement that he believes that “Folks closest to a problem are usually the best at solving it.” Good deal, senator. Then perhaps he’ll persuade the 2019 Texas Legislature, presuming he wins re-election, to stop monkeying around with cities’ efforts to install red-light cameras as a deterrent to those who keep breaking the law by running through those stop lights.

I’ve already stipulated that I consider Seliger to be a friend. I also am impressed by how quickly he grasped the nuts and bolts of legislating after he was elected initially in 2004.

Seliger says he’ll run as a conservative legislator. According to some political interest groups, though, he’s not conservative enough. Empower Texas is one such group that likely will work to defeat Seliger. I believe this group is making a mistake.

Kel Seliger knows the pulse of Senate District 31 from the Permian Basin to the top of the Panhandle. He needs to return to the Senate.

Right there might be Sen. Seliger’s first political endorsement.

You’re welcome, senator.

local news, political news

A Texas Senate race may start smoldering soon

Well, well, well …

Not only are there three men setting up a stout challenge for a Randall County court at law judge this coming spring, it turns out that a veteran West Texas state senator is going to be “primaried” as well in 2018.

The potential Senate contest poses an interesting political dynamic worth watching verrry closely.

Republican state Sen. Kel Seliger has represented Senate District 31 since 2004. He is a former Amarillo city commissioner and mayor who once ran — with his brother — a steel company in Amarillo. Seliger has risen to a significant leadership position in the Texas Senate, chairing the Senate Higher Education Committee for the past couple of legislative sessions.

He’s a solid legislator who picked up the unique language of legislation right away upon his first election to the Senate. He is nuanced, detail-oriented and smart. Yes, he’s also a friend of mine. So there, I’ve laid out my bias.

He’s got two challengers — presuming he chooses to seek re-election next year.

One of them is former Midland Mayor Mike Canon, who ran against Seliger in the GOP primary in 2014. Canon’s a nice enough fellow. He’s a lawyer by training. I had a chance to visit with Canon prior to a Panhandle PBS candidate forum in the spring of 2014; I was among the journalists who questioned Canon and Seliger.

My primary takeaway from that forum was pretty straightforward: Canon’s TEA Party affiliation became apparent as he answered our questions with talking points, platitudes and clichĂ©s. Seliger’s answers were far more detailed and he exhibited a keen understanding of the complexities of legislation.

Still, Canon’s Permian Basin base stood behind him when the primary votes were counted and he came within fewer than 5 percentage points of defeating Seliger, whose Panhandle base turned out even more strongly behind the incumbent.

Enter another challenger to Seliger. That would be Victor Leal, an Amarillo business owner and a fellow with fairly high name recognition throughout a decent portion of Senate District 31. Why is that? He once served as mayor of Muleshoe. Plus, he ran for Texas House District 87 in 2011 in an effort to succeed David Swinford, who bowed out of a re-election campaign.

But an issue emerged with Leal’s candidacy. His residency came into question. He had resided for several years in Randall County, which is not part of House District 87. He rented a small house in Potter County, but there remained some question about whether he actually was residing in the Potter County dwelling.

Leal lost the GOP primary that year to Amarillo lawyer Four Price, who’s still serving in the Texas House (and who himself has a GOP primary challenger). The residency issue won’t come up in this Senate race, as District 31 includes both Randall and Potter counties.

I’m curious about the possible impact Leal’s candidacy is going to have on this campaign mix. Leal figures to bite a bit into Seliger’s Panhandle base of support. The question, too, is whether he’ll also be able to siphon enough votes from the Permian Basin to make life uncomfortable for Canon.

Seliger’s reputation as a GOP moderate just might — in Canon’s mind and perhaps in Leal’s too — present an inviting target for primary challengers seeking to appeal to the hard-core conservative wing of the Republican Party.

We’ll now wait for word on Seliger’s intentions. I’m a tiny bit anxious to know what the senator plans to do.

State news

Bathroom Bill is dead; may it remain dead

Ladies and gents, boys and girls … I am delighted to proclaim the return to sanity in at least governmental power center.

That would be in Austin, Texas, where the Legislature is concluding a special session called to deal with 20 issues mandated by Gov. Greg Abbott. One of them was the so-called Bathroom Bill.

The Bathroom Bill has been flushed away. It’s gone. The Legislature won’t send this idiotic notion to the governor’s desk.

While the nation is trying to gather its wits after the president’s stunning remarks Tuesday about “both sides” sharing blame for the tragedy that unfolded in Charlottesville, Texas lawmakers have performed a profoundly sane act by killing the Bathroom Bill.

The bill, which was part of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s wish list of items to be enacted, would have required folks to use bathrooms in accordance with the gender noted on their birth certificates. It is intended to prevent transgender individuals who identify with the “other gender” to use the bathroom commensurate with their sexual identity.

That would apply to those who’ve actually had their gender changed surgically. Yep, a man who was born a woman would have had to use the women’s restroom — and vice versa.

Discriminatory? Yeah. Just a tad.

Texas senators approved this bill and sent it to the House of Representatives. Speaker Joe Straus, though, opposed it, as did most House members. Straus said he wouldn’t be party to a bill that discriminated against transgendered individuals.

So, the bill has died a quiet death.

Lt. Gov. Patrick had support among social conservatives and clergy. Police chiefs opposed it, as did business leaders. According to the Texas Tribune: “Transgender women, men and children from across Texas descended on the Capitol to testify about how the proposal — which would ban local policies that ensured transgender individuals’ right to use public and school restrooms that match their gender identity — could endanger their lives. The business community rallied against the legislation too, giving House Speaker Joe Straus cover as he refused to negotiate with Patrick on bathroom restrictions.”

Read the rest of the Tribune story here.

It’s foolish to predict that the Bathroom Bill will remain dead. It might come back when the 2019 Legislature convenes. It might even be part of yet another special session if Gov. Abbott is inclined to call one.

I hope he doesn’t. The state has many compelling issues with which to wrestle. The nonsense associated with the use of public restrooms isn’t one of them.

State news

Lt. Gov. declares war on cities

Dan Patrick has gone to “war” with city governments.

Think of that for a moment. The Texas lieutenant governor blames city governments for all the problems afflicting the nation. The Republican official says, moreover, that Democratic municipal leaders are to blame for those urban problems.

Huh? Is this loudmouth suggesting that cities’ problems are exclusive to urban areas? Does he mean to suggest that rural America — and that includes Texas, of course — is immune from those maladies?

Good grief, dude!

Patrick made that declaration on Fox Business News. He all but admitted that he launched the attack for partisan purposes. He wants to lay the blame at Democrats’ feet and wants to protect Republican officeholders from criticism.

Nice try, big fella. It ain’t gonna work.

Patrick is getting some push back, of course, from city leaders. They are reminding the lieutenant governor that rural Americans suffer precisely the same problems as urban Americans: drug abuse, gun violence, sexual crimes, unwanted pregnancies, alcohol abuse … do I need to go on?

Patrick’s attack on urban Texas and the rest of the nation ignores the reality that most cities (in Texas anyway) elect their governing councils on non-partisan ballots. Mayors and city council members as a rule do not run as Democrats or Republicans. They are elected by voters on matters that next to nothing to do with party affiliation.

Lt. Gov. Patrick has decided to make it a partisan battle.

As if we don’t have enough of them already!

State news

‘Bathroom Bill’ on life support? Pull the plug!

Texas’s so-called “Bathroom Bill” is wallowing in the Texas House of Representatives.

Some lawmakers have said the bill is on “life support.” It’s not likely to get to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature.

To which I offer a hearty “hurrah!”

The Texas Legislature has eight days to go before adjourning its special session. The Senate has sent a bushel bucket of bills to the House. One of them is that damn Bathroom Bill, which requires individuals to use public restrooms commensurate with the gender listed on their birth certificate. The bill discriminates against transgender individuals. It is a patently ridiculous piece of legislation.

Legislative Republicans say it’s intent is to protect women and girls from male sexual predators who enter their restrooms disguised as women. Police chiefs around the state say that rationale is utter hogwash, that they have no reports of that kind of sexual assault.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus opposes it. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick supports it. The bill is one of many such bills that might end up in the trash can when the Legislature gavels the special session to a close.

If the governor intends to bring legislators back to Austin to finish their work, my sincere hope is that he reduces the legislative call by at least one measure: that would be the Bathroom Bill.

As the Texas Tribune reports: “House State Affairs Chairman Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, said Tuesday he will not give the ‘bathroom bill’ a hearing in his committee — and the measure’s author, state Rep. Ron Simmons, said it would be difficult to amend the bill as written to any other legislation moving through the chamber.”

Here is the Texas Tribune story.

It looks to me as though it’s time to pull the plug on the Bathroom Bill and concentrate on issues that really matter to all Texans.

local news, State news

Patrick misfires on municipal government critique

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Oh, that Dan Patrick. He needs a lesson in Civics 101.

The Texas lieutenant governor has now laid blame for “all the problems” facing America at the feet of mayors, the vast majority of whom he says are Democrats. Oh, did I mention that Patrick is a Republican? There. I just did.

Patrick told Fox Business News that Democrats have made such a mess of municipal government that cities’ woes are spilling over into other walks of life. He said citizens are happy with governments at the state level. The cities? They’ve gone to hell, thanks to Democrats, according to the sometimes-bombastic lieutenant governor.

Shall we offer the lesson now? Sure, why not?

I’ll concede that there are pockets of municipal dysfunction around the country that have occurred under the watch of mayors elected as Democrats. Is that an exclusively Democratic problem? No. It is not. Republican-run cities have fiscal and crime issues with which they must deal, too. They have potholes that need to be filled and street signals that need to function properly.

What’s more, many thousands of mayors and city council members are elected on non-partisan ballots. Partisanship has no place in municipal governance. Cities with home-rule charters are governed by those who set aside partisan differences and who seek to set policies based on community interests, not based on whether they have positive or negative impacts on certain neighborhoods based on partisan affiliation or leaning.

I’m reminded at this moment of an Amarillo mayoral race some years ago in which a challenger to then-Mayor Kel Seliger called on all “good Republicans” to elect her instead of the incumbent. Mary Alice Brittain sent out pamphlets imploring GOP voters to turn out that spring to oust the mayor.

I was working at the time as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News and we reminded our readers to turn their backs on the ignorant rants of that challenger, given that Amarillo is one of most Texas cities governed by non-partisan mayors and city council members.

Seliger won re-election that year by a huge margin; Brittain disappeared and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Dan Patrick is entitled to espouse his partisan bias. I understand he’s a faithful Republican officeholder. He’s got a tough job running the Texas Senate, which is meeting at the moment with the House of Representatives in a special session of the Legislature.

But, c’mon Dan! Knock off the broad-brush blame game against local government officials who are doing their best to cope with the problems facing every city in America regardless of party affiliation.

As the Texas Tribune reports: But “the fact that city elections are nonpartisan is one of the greatest things about city government,” said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. “We like to say that potholes aren’t Democratic or Republican… it costs the same amount regardless of ideology.” 

Patrick should know better. I fear he does not.

local news, State news

Bathroom Bill is a huge error

I am going to stand foursquare, solidly behind my former colleague Jon Mark Beilue, who has written a profoundly reasonable rebuke of Senate Bill 3, which the Texas Senate approved on a partisan vote.

SB 3 is the so-called Bathroom Bill. As Beilue notes, it is rooted in unfounded fear. Read Beilue’s column in the Amarillo Globe-News here.

I’m not an “embarrassed conservative” who voted twice for Ronald Reagan, as Beilue describes himself. I am an unapologetic progressive who is horrified that state government would waste its time — and my money — on this discriminatory legislation.

The bill would require transgender individuals to use public restrooms that comport with the gender assigned on their birth certificate. That’s right. A burly dude who once was a woman has to use the women’s room; a hot babe who came into this world as a boy has to use the men’s room.

How in the name of all that is reasonable does one enforce such a law? Who is going to check to see if a woman has all her appropriate body parts? Who’ll do the same thing to a man?

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who runs the Senate, keeps yapping about protecting women from sexual assault in the restroom. The police report zero incidents of such crimes occurring; senior police officials oppose SB 3.

So does House Speaker Joe Straus, whose chamber gets this bill next. What is the House going to do with this monstrosity? That remains the Question of the Day.

All 31 Texas senators voted on SB 3. Twenty-one of them approved it. I don’t yet know this with absolute certainty, but I’m sure that means state Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo joined his GOP brethren in approving this hideous legislation.

And that, dear reader, provides me with one of my greatest disappointments, that Sen. Seliger would sign on to this travesty.

I do share Beilue’s concern, though, about the fate of “sane, reasonable” conservatism. It has been trampled to death by far-right fear mongers.

State news

Remembering a great Texas Republican

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas –– Wherever my wife and I travel these days, I cannot help but think of individuals I’ve either met while working in journalism or those about whom I have some knowledge.

We came to this northeast Texas community in search of a grocery store to buy some, um, groceries. I told my wife that this is the hometown of one of the great all-time Texas politicians.

Bill Ratliff was a state senator from Titus County. He was a Republican lawmaker who was held in the highest esteem possible by all 31 of his Senate colleagues. Democrats respected him as much as his fellow Republicans.

Sen. Ratliff was what I have called a “reasonable Republican” who knew how to work across the aisle. Both parties have become so polarized these days that bipartisanship has become a four-letter word.

In 2001, though, the rarest of events occurred in the Texas Senate.

Gov. George W. Bush was elected president in 2000. Because of that vote-counting matter in Florida, Texas Gov. Bush’s election was not a foregone conclusion until a month or so after Election Day. The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the ballot recount in Florida, Bush was leading at the time by 537 votes, Florida’s electoral votes went to Bush — and he was elected president.

Then Bush quit the Texas governorship, elevating Lt. Gov. Rick Perry to the Big Office. That meant the state needed a lieutenant governor to preside over the Texas Senate. To whom did the Senate turn? For the first time in state history, senators elevated Bill Ratliff to the lieutenant governor’s office, a post he held while at the same time serving as state senator during the 2001 Texas Legislature.

He served in that capacity until 2003, when David Dewhurst was elected lieutenant governor.

Ratliff had a nickname among his Senate colleagues, who called him Obi-Wan Kenobi, the wise being from “Star Wars.” Indeed, Ratliff once said of his own Republican views: “I am a Republican because I agree with the Republicans at least 51 percent of the time.”

He was unafraid, therefore, to agree with Democrats when the time — and the cause — was right.

Sen./Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff is now 80. I wish he was still serving his beloved Texas.