The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance calls on Congress to deal seriously with the plight of the long-term unemployed as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff previews the upcoming hearing on Texas' ban on same-sex marriage with a bold prediction of how it will likely play out.

Horwitz at Texpatriate recaps the recent runoff election in the city of Houston.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is glad Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte are running to support public education. Too bad all of the Republican candidates for lieutenant governor are running to teach the Bible in place of science. Psst: The earth is not flat, nor does the sun revolve around our planet.

The first in a series of profiles of the candidates appearing on the 2014 statewide Democratic ballot appears at Brains and Eggs.

Eye On Williamson has the the list of Democratic candidates that filed for 2014. They give us reason for hope in Williamson County in 2014: Williamson County races with Democrats on the ballot.

Neil at All People Have Value wrote that a picture of a Christmas wreath on a door is as good as the real thing. Friendly and flexible people know that it is the shadow that sells the substance. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

LawFlog asks if George P. Bush is padding his resume.

Rep. Mike Villarreal celebrates the increase in health insurance enrollments by Texans on the federal exchange.

Egberto Willies analyzes the exchange from yesterday's This Week between Robert Reich and Newt Gingrich regarding who and what is responsible for the vast income equality gap.

Megan Randall documents her experience with Healthcare.gov, which got her a better policy than what she previously had at a lower price.

Grits for Breakfast argues that state fire marshall Chris Conneally should be named Texan of the Year by the Dallas Morning News.

Offcite explores the Houston townhouse as "a formal expression of laws that make no explicit claims to form".

Progress Texas crowns the Ten Worst Texans of 2013, though how they narrowed it down to ten remains a mystery.

Paul Kennedy looks at how corporations take money from taxpayers to pay executives a king's ransom.

Sunday Funnies

"Wal-Mart announced this week that the best-selling item on Black Friday was a pack of towels that sold for $1.74. So heads up, kids: Christmas is gonna suck."

-- Seth Meyers

Megyn Kelly: For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.

Stephen Colbert: Yes. Thank you. For all those kids watching Fox News at 9:40 at night, Santa is white. Besides, a black Santa is a terrible idea. If a homeowner in Florida sees a black man coming down their chimney, he is going to get shot. 'Officer, I was only defending my milk and cookies!'"

-- The Colbert Report

"Santa is just white? Who are you actually talking to? Children who are sophisticated enough to be watching a news channel at 10 o'clock at night, yet innocent enough to still believe Santa Claus is real, yet racist enough to be freaked out if he isn’t white."

-- Jon Stewart

President Obama shook hands with Cuban dictator Raul Castro. Or as Fox News reported it: "Foreign communist shakes hands with the leader of Cuba."

-- Conan O'Brien

Incumbents bounced in H-Town

With voter turnout failing to reach 30,000, 37,000, a significant anti-incumbent sentiment ruled the day (and night).

Two Houston City Council incumbents and two incumbents on the Houston Community College board lost their seats Saturday, according to unofficial runoff election results.

With all precincts reporting, controversial first-term council incumbents Helena Brown, in northwest Houston's District A, and Andrew C. Burks Jr., in At-Large Position 2, fell to their challengers, as did HCC trustees Yolanda Navarro Flores and Herlinda Garcia.

Brown lost her rematch with Brenda Stardig, the incumbent she defeated to gain the seat two years ago.  [...]

Burks fell to challenger David W. Robinson, a civic leader and former city planning commissioner. Robinson raised far more campaign cash than did Burks, who had run unsuccessfully numerous times before winning his seat two years ago.  [...]

In the At-Large 3 runoff, bail bondsman and civic activist Michael Kubosh, best known for leading the charge against Houston's red-light cameras, topped former Harris County Department of Education trustee and former mayoral candidate Roy Morales.  [...]

In south Houston's District D, lobbyist Dwight Boykins bested businesswoman Georgia D. Provost. Boykins had thumped the 11 other candidates in fundraising heading into November. Term-limited District D Councilwoman Wanda Adams was elected to the Houston ISD board.

In a very low-turnout race in the East End's District I, Harris County jailer and civic activist Robert Gallegos beat Graci Garcés, who is chief of staff for the term-limited James Rodriguez.

Political analysts had pointed to a larger rivalry in the race, given that Gallegos served eight years as an aide to former eastside Harris County commissioner and now-state Sen. Sylvia Garcia, and that Garcés worked for former council member and now-State Rep. Carol Alvarado. Alvarado and Garcia waged a bitter campaign earlier this year for the post Garcia now holds. [...]

In the Houston Community College contests, District 1 incumbent Flores lost to challenger Zeph Capo, a vice president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. In District 3, Adriana Tamez, an education consultant, beat incumbent Garcia, who was appointed to the post after the resignation of the prior trustee. In the runoff for the open District 5 seat, businessman Robert Glaser topped commercial real estate agent Phil Kunetka.

Sorry about all those ellipses; I'm just not as fond of Mark Jones' opinion as the Chron is.  But he does get one thing right: the Sylvia Garcia-Carol Alvarado dynamic is now the one to watch in the East End (Sylvia's team is 2-0).  Who aligns with whom in the future may make the biggest difference in who wins, which is far more interesting than seeing who raised the most money.  But the worst news is that some of these downballot races didn't have 5000 votes in total cast in them.  Positively dismal.

Noah live-blogged the evening and has the vote tallies by race as Clerk Stanart slowly managed to get them counted  -- an hour after polls close before the EV comes in ?!? -- so you can see that the largest trend that Election Day reversed was Capo's win in the HCC 1 contest.

No disrespect intended to tonight's victors, but if Mayor Parker just traded Helena Brown for Michael Kubosh, then there are no real winners or losers.  But if you look it as Melissa Noriega traded for Kubosh...

Corporate Super PACs now allowed in all Texas elections

I rail on about the poisoning influence of money in politics for many reasons.  This is one of them.

The Watchdog wants you to know how Texas government and politics are about to change in a fundamental way. A little-noticed lawsuit has cleared the way for a historic switch. For the first time, corporations can make direct contributions to super PACs to influence state, county, local and school board elections in Texas.

You mean like that U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision that did the same for federal races?

Exactly. In lawyer talk, this aligns Texas with the federal ruling.

Cut the lawyer talk. What does this mean for the average voter?

In the darkest scenario, a millionaire donor from out-of-state could chuck gobs of money into a school board race and overthrow a board. Woe to a town mayor who upsets a big company. Small-town races could suddenly see a massive influx of corporate money handled through what state officials call “direct campaign expenditure only committees.”

I don’t get it.

Corporations were not allowed to donate to Texas elections through committees or any other way. Now they can pool their money with individual donors in these new political action committees. And these super PACs, although not allowed to make direct contributions to candidates, can spend unlimited amounts to campaign for one side or another. They will supposedly operate independent of the candidates.

How did this happen?

A group called Texans for Free Enterprise filed a federal lawsuit against the Texas Ethics Commission. The state lost. Dallas lawyer Chris Gober is the winning lawyer.

What does he say?

He says, “It’s very controversial. Some people certainly take the position that the more money in politics, the worse. What this particular decision represents is us requiring the state of Texas to recognize the bounds of the First Amendment that have been established by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Corporations still cannot donate directly to candidates, Gober says. “What the law still does is prevent corporations from actively engaging with candidates and giving direct money to candidates in ways that create the danger of quid pro quo corruption.”

Do you think that’s true, Watchdog Man?

We’ll see. What we do know is that corporations will have more power to influence Texas elections than ever, and they were no shrinking violet before this. Gober says, “A lot of people believe that corporations are affected by government policies more so than individuals, that they have the right to engage in the debate to determine how the people are going to be governed.”

Are there limits to the donations?

No limits.

What does the losing party, the Texas Ethics Commission, say?

Officials are changing state election law. TEC general counsel Natalia Ashley says, “It’s hard to know how it’s going to impact races since this is the first time it will be allowed.”

Watchdog, did you talk to a political expert?

I did. Cal Jillson, the SMU political science professor, says that since individuals could already donate unlimited amounts to Texas races, this won’t have a dramatic effect. He suggests that some corporations will be hesitant to get involved in races: “Their customers are on both sides of divisive issues.”

What about Allan Saxe, over at the University of Texas at Arlington?

Saxe tells The Watchdog: “I’m for free speech. It may be unfair, but the First Amendment doesn’t talk about fairness. It talks about freedom, and that’s what the case is based on. In our society, everybody is trying to be fair and make everybody equal. … Money is not fair. But as long as people earn their money honestly and legally, I have no quarrel with it.”

What can the rest of us do, Watchdog?

My suggestion: Voters must pay attention to where political money comes from, why donors are giving and what they hope to get out of it. Contributor information and PAC registration will be available for free viewing on the Texas Ethics Commission website.

Obviously there are far too many people invested in the status quo -- all the way down to university political science professors -- for this development to be slowed down, stopped, or rolled back any time soon.  The efforts of organizations like Move to Amend simply can't keep up.  Of all of the recent developments suggesting that the tide is turning in Texas, this one law will see to it that the corporate politicians on both sides of the aisle will hang on much longer than we the people want.

To paraphrase Jesse Ventura, they're already dug in like an Alabama tick.

What they taught me in Boy Scouts about how to remove a tick was to light a match, blow it out, apply it to the tick's backside, and when he releases, grab him and crush him.  Trust me, it works.

That's the only way we're going to get rid of these blood-sucking insects attached to our democracy.