Friday, February 05, 2021

EOW Lone Star Leftist Round-Up

Greg Abbott's state of delusion and Dade Phelan's wacky committee chair choices lead the loony tunes headlines going into Super Bowl weekend.

Your pal, Gov. Helen Wheels.

With many parts of Texas still besieged by huge COVID-19 caseloads, a bungled vaccination rollout, and an unemployment rate unseen since the Great Recession, Governor Greg Abbott chose to paint a much rosier picture in his State of the State address Monday.

“Texas remains the economic engine of America, the land of unmatched opportunity, and our comeback is already materializing. Texas has added new jobs for eight months in a row. ... Texans are returning to work. Students are returning to school. Families are re-establishing routines,” Abbott said.

“With each passing day of more vaccinations and increased immunity, normalcy is returning to Texas.” With his prologue about that pesky pandemic out of the way, Abbott went on to outline his political agenda for the 2021 session that consists largely of red meat for his party’s right-wing base.

The governor's so-called emergency items include election integrity, which are QAnon code words for voter suppression.

Abbott (AG Ken Paxton, and others) spent the weeks leading up to the 2020 election pushing back against every local attempt to make voting in a pandemic easier and safer, all while spreading misinformation about alleged "rampant voter fraud", so (this) is no surprise ...

Several Republican lawmakers have already introduced election bills that would further restrict the mail ballot system and increase criminal penalties for voter fraud. Last session, Senate Republicans passed an “election integrity” bill that would raise criminal penalties for certain election-related offenses; establish stricter rules for assisting disabled, elderly, or absentee voters; and altogether increase the likelihood that people who mistakenly violate election laws face criminal prosecution. As (the Texas Observer) reported then, voting rights advocates warned that the bill would “sharply escalate an ongoing campaign of voter suppression.” While the bill died in the House, Abbott wants that same bill to be a starting point for lawmakers this session.

Yesterday the new speaker of the Texas House made his selections of the heads of the chamber's working committees for the session.  To say there are some surprises understates it.


Cain, R-Deer Park, was one of several lawyers who volunteered for the Trump campaign’s failed effort to throw out the election results in Pennsylvania, traveling to Philadelphia and interviewing poll workers and watchers. He declined Thursday to say whether he believes the federal election results were legitimate, or that the Pennsylvania lawsuits were adequately vetted. ... Since then, the Houston-area lawmaker has filed three election-related bills in the House, two aimed at rooting out non-citizen voters and one proposing to increase criminal penalties on voters who list an incorrect home address.

[...]

“Texas already makes it harder to vote than any other state. Rep. Briscoe being put in charge of the Elections Committee is a clear signal that the politicians in charge intend to make it even harder,” Anthony Gutierrez, the head of Common Cause Texas, a non-partisan public-interest group, said in a statement. “We’ll be fighting to stop them at every step.”

In 2019, then-Texas Secretary of State David Whitley was forced to resign after his office attempted to purge tens of thousands of voters, few of whom were confirmed to be ineligible, and the Senate did not confirm his nomination. Under Cain’s proposed legislation, gathering data for similar purges would be required.

One last bit from there, for our edification.

A poll released this week by the University of Houston showed 83 percent Republicans in Texas believe there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, compared to 45 percent for the electorate overall.

As of (yesterday), all of Cain’s Twitter activity before Dec. 21 appeared to have been scrubbed, including a widely shared post from November sent on his way to Philadelphia. Asked about the apparently deleted tweets, he said, “News to me.”



Some things never change; this cartoon is from 2003.


Wieners: "Fresh blood", i.e. the new generation of right-wing freaks; Team Bonnen (a clap-back at Empower Texas, despite all the wingnuts at the committee helms), Dallas Republicans, and in the spirit of bipartisanship ... Democrats Victoria Neave and Harold Dutton.

Loosers: The old guard; the X-Men (the ten Lege Rethugs who garroted ex-Speaker Dennis Bonnen) and female members of the House, who got stiffed on chairs.

Bruised fee-fees, new alliances, an upended dynamic because of the pandemic, an assured special session on redistricting, where the long knives will come out ... fun!


I could go long again on Texans behaving badly, but that topic really exhausts me, so I'll save it for Monday's Wrangle.  A few social justice updates:


And scattered, mostly unrelated good news/bad news Tweets to close out.

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