The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is grateful that the word "blizzard" is not part of its usual vernacular as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff looks at how the 2012 election results differed from 2008 in State Senate and SBOE districts.

DosCentavos' Fidencio Leija reports on the work of HOPE in the End of Course testing debate.

There is a troll hiding in plain sight on the United States Supreme Court, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs says it's going to take a lot of willpower not to feed it.

Over at TexasKaos, Lightseeker reports on the charter school money grab, aided by the usual suspect. Check it out - Charter Schools Make Play for Huge Increase in Public Funding.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know that a couple of our Supreme Court Justices don't appreciate racism. Lets hope that number rises to at least five for the Voting Rights Act.

The problem for our state's "leaders" is that they've been telling us for so long that we have a spending problem, they have no answer when it becomes obvious that we don't have a spending problem. That's why WCNews at Eye on Williamson says we have a lack of spending problem in Texas.

Neil at Texas Liberal did not post so much this past week. However, Neil remains at work on a new website to be published this April to be called NeilAquino.com. This website will have a photo essay extolling the intellectual virtues of everyday life , a metaphorical history of existence, some poems and a blog about the 2013 City of Houston elections. For the TPA round-up this week, Neil has submitted a popular Texas Liberal post about the famous Dogs Playing Poker paintings.

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And here are some more interesting posts from Texas blogs.

See creationism opponent Zack Kopplin on the Bill Moyers show, via Creationist Vouchers.

Brewed and Never Battered and Open The Taps give an update on the legislative effort to improve the lot of Texas microbreweries and brewpubs.

Texas Watch sets the record straight on lawsuit "reform".

Texas Vox has an update on litigation against the Keystone XL Southern Segment.

Burnt Orange Report discusses whether we are in the waning period of a short golden age of African American influence over the city of Austin.

Texpatriate acknowledges the candidate who just won't go away, whose name rhymes with Stinky Peedman.

Jason Stanford points out what a fraidy cat Bill Hammond is.

Nonsequiteuse examines the criticism of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Meyer.

Lone Star Ma celebrates the fact that the teen birth rate in the US is at an all-time low.

And The Lunch Tray asks if the dairy industry is using school kids as a Trojan horse to change artificial sweetener labeling rules.

Post-mortem on SD-6

-- Charles notes that the new senator from the 6th won't be sworn in next week, after all.

Now here’s the bad news:

Harris County has 10 days to canvass the results after Saturday’s contest, and Gov. Rick Perry’s office of has an additional four days. The winner cannot take her oath until the governor’s canvass, which means the victor will not be able to file any bills after taking office.

Cripes. After all this time, we still have to wait another two weeks for SD06 to be represented. If Sen.-elect Garcia were able to file bills, I’d recommend that her first would be to amend the special election procedure to allow for an immediate swearing in when a special election to fill a vacancy occurs during a session and there’s no question of a recount or other challenge to the election to fill that vacancy. I mean seriously, in a just world Garcia would be sworn in on Monday. Maybe one of her colleagues-to-be can file this legislation on her behalf, or perhaps Rep. Alvarado can do it as a gesture of letting bygones be bygones.

You think that was just a coincidence? You don't think that the governor got some advice on how to proceed with the scheduling from some loyal flacks in the Texas AG's office, do you?

Update:

Though the formal March 8 deadline for filing bills will have passed when Garcia is sworn in, (Democratic political consultant Harold) Cook said, professional courtesy would allow her to introduce legislation. 

-- Harvey:

IN WHAT BECOMES ANOTHER PROXY WAR, MOSTYN AND UNIONS TRUMP TLR AND ALLIES IN SD6 SPECIAL ELECTION BATTLE  

Gallegos family endorsed Alvarado but union base backed Garcia 
 
Texans for Lawsuit Reform took another trouncing tonight as former county commissioner Sylvia Garcia beat former Rep. Carol Alvarado in tonight’s run-off election for Senate District 6.

First: Alvarado is a current state representative, not a former one. TLR was the largest contributor to the Alvarado campaign by far, at $184,000, but Garcia got more than 2.5 times that much from Steve Mostyn and his activist network, Texas Organizing Project; nearly $475,000 in monetary and in-kind contributions. In some respects it is difficult to see this as a good thing (unless you are a bright blue partisan, of course).

-- Poor Campos. Another vivid demonstration of him not knowing how to win, and not getting things done. Clue to him: you can't take GOP money, GOP operatives, and GOP electeds and win in a predominantly Democratic district. I suppose you can make some pretty good commissions, however.

Why would any Democrat running for office hire him at this point unless they intended to use the same strategy -- attract Republican support to try to win a swing seat -- for example, on Houston city council? Try to keep this guy's M.O. in mind in the future, Democrats (those of you from the Democratic wing of the party, that is).

--  On the other hand, much of this effort on the part of Alvarado and the Republicans and Democrats who supported her has to be considered an investment in the future. She is 45 and remains a state representative in a safe district. She can hold that seat for the next 20 years or longer... when she will be the same age as Garcia.

Garcia is either 66 years old if you trust the Chronicle, or 62 by her own disclosure. How long does she realistically remain a state senator beyond this term (4 years) and the next one? By then she will be at least 70. Do you know how many septuagenarians there currently are in the Texas Senate? That would be none.

So whenever it might be that Sylvia Garcia is no longer a state senator -- and not far in the future it will be -- who is it that has not just the inside track, but obviously first claim?

Nice to know everything's all taken care of, isn't it?