Robert Byrd 1917-2010 and Dolph Briscoe 1923-2010

Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a fiery orator versed in the classics and a hard-charging power broker who steered billions of federal dollars to the state of his Depression-era upbringing, died Monday. He was 92.

Byrd was first elected to the Senate the year I was born, 1958.

In comportment and style, Byrd often seemed a Senate throwback to a courtlier 19th century. He could recite poetry, quote the Bible, discuss the Constitutional Convention and detail the Peloponnesian Wars — and frequently did in Senate debates.

Yet there was nothing particularly courtly about Byrd's pursuit or exercise of power.
Byrd was a master of the Senate's bewildering rules and longtime chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls a third of the $3 trillion federal budget. He was willing to use both to reward friends and punish those he viewed as having slighted him.

"Bob is a living encyclopedia, and legislative graveyards are filled with the bones of those who underestimated him," former House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, once said in remarks Byrd later displayed in his office.

Byrd had been a member of the KKK in his early years, and it was a Klucker that first suggested he run for political office.

Byrd's accomplishments followed a childhood of poverty in West Virginia, and his success on the national stage came despite a complicated history on racial matters. As a young man, we was a member of the Ku Klux Klan for a brief period, and he joined Southern Democrats in an unsuccessful filibuster against the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.

He later apologized for both actions, saying intolerance has no place in America. While supporting later civil rights bills, he opposed busing to integrate schools. 

More here, here, and here. He was a titan of the Senate, and his passing leaves a chasm as great as Kennedy's.

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Dolph Briscoe Jr., 87, a rancher, banker and businessman from the Texas Brush Country whose promise to restore integrity to a scandal-plagued state government propelled him into the Governor's Mansion in 1973, died Sunday at the family home in Uvalde.

Briscoe was governor precisely during the period of time I was in high school and then college.

The first Texas governor to serve a four-year term, he was re-elected in 1974 and then lost to Attorney General John Hill in the 1978 Democratic primary. In a stunning upset, Hill lost in the general election to Bill Clements, the state's first Republican governor since Reconstruction. Clements won, in part, because conservative Democrats were unhappy over Briscoe's loss and failed to support Hill.

*sigh* Some things just never change, do they?

Running as an outsider and challenging the stewardship of incumbent officeholders, he defeated Gov. Preston Smith and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes. In the general election, he beat Republican state Sen. Henry "Hank" Grover and Ramsey Muniz, the candidate of the La Raza Unida Party.

Then again ... how different do you think things would be in Texas if there were still an active La Raza Unida Party?

Prima-caucus lives, and the potential fallout

Executive summary first from the R.G. :

Tempers flared today as delegates to the Texas Democratic Convention accused each other of racism and ignoring the needs of the infirm, elderly and soldiers overseas.

But in end they overwhelmingly voted 5,602-1,930 to keep the controversial Texas "Two-Step" system of allocating presidential nominating convention delegates through a hybrid of a primary and election-night caucuses.

Some portrayed the fight as the continuation of the 2008 battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. But others said problems in that election showed the shortcomings of the system.

Many Democrats were angered in 2008 because Clinton won the most votes in the primary but Obama out-maneuvered her in the caucuses to win the most nominating delegates: 95-91.

After hours of debate in the convention rules committee and another hour of heated discussion on the Democratic convention floor, the delegates voted to retain the hybrid system rather than go to a system of allocating all presidential nominating delegates based solely on the primary vote.

This is solid as to the synopsis and conclusion, so I'll just fill in some of the on-the-convention-floor color.

Royce West, the state senator from Dallas, was first to speak from the floor during the discussion and almost immediately played the race card, suggesting that eliminating the caucus would "disenfranchise" some activist African-Americans whose communities conduct politics as close-knit, neighborhood affairs.

Some speakers after West picked up the gauntlet, suggesting that shift workers, the disabled, seniors and soldiers serving overseas were in fact the ones being disenfranchised by their inability to participate in the election-day-evening precinct conventions.  And some called bullshit on that. From the Texas Tribune's live-blog (2:29 pm entry):

Leroy Warren Jr., a Democrat from Collin County, got fired up at the mic. He wants to keep the two-step primary election process that allowed Barack Obama to get more delegates to the Democratic National Committee even though Hillary Clinton won the popular primary vote. He says others are using the veil of protecting minorities to try to change a system that allowed the black candidate to win election.

"These shenanigans ought to stop right now, and they ought to take that minority report and go trash it." ... 

A couple more Af-Am delegates followed, echoing and amplifying West's 'disenfranchised' comments. And some others rebutted. It was uncomfortable and unpleasant, to say the least.

I would like to respectfully point out that "disenfranchisement" as defined here is entirely the wrong word to use to describe the caucus participation/effect:

disenfranchise - : to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; especially : to deprive of the right to vote

Nobody is being deprived of their right to vote either by keeping or deleting the caucus portion of the delegate allocation. No one.

The caucus rewards those activists who take responsibility to get off their couch and go participate with their neighbors in the political welfare and future of their 'hood, their state, their nation. It doesn't penalize anybody. It's a valuable component of our democracy, IMHO.

(As Ratcliffe noted above, the caucus itself was not being ended by the proposed changes in the rules committee's minority report; only the math would change. But the math would disembowel the caucus' effect on delegate count; some consequently argued that was a distinction without a difference.)

So despite being a big fan of the prima-caucus -- and voting in favor of it -- what bothered me the most was the misunderstandings associated with the question and the divisions it opened.

I believe that Boyd Richie -- and by proxy, Bill White -- must mend fences with those who favored change (again, in the form of eliminating the mathematical emphasis given to the caucus results) and who lost that battle decisively. Indeed those appear to be RGV Latinos who preferred Clinton in 2008, and are being heavily relied upon to carry Texas Democrats up and down the ballot to victory in November. That same percentage of people (see the 12:24 pm TexTrib live-blog entry) supported Richie's challenger, Mike Barnes, and the endorsement Barnes received yesterday was from the Hispanic caucus ... a significant sign of weakness for Richie, despite the efforts of Democratic establishment Hispanics to downplay it.

I think there will be more unity demonstrated  coming out of Corpus if only because of political necessity.  But if I'm wrong, this could be the harbinger of doom. Latinos aren't going to vote Republican because of stuff like this but they may stay home on Election Day, and they have historically done far too much of that as it is.

See The Texas Blue for another take.

Corpus update (and some Funnies)

Recovering this morning from last night's blogger caucus, which always seems to be the best party in town.

The Texas Tribune has a good live blog, although their last entry at this posting is from yesterday afternoon at 3:18, and features the pathetic Mark Miner and his generator again. This guy is a masochist.

Update: They're up-to-date, with lots of video. Go look.

They also have the sad news about "Sputnik". If you don't know about him then you missed knowing one of the most colorful characters in the entire state of Texas. I observed Austin lawmakers nervously shaking in his presence.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times has the best coverage of yesterday's events, including photos.

White launched a series of attacks on his Republican opponent ending each point with the refrain “Part-time Perry is in it for himself.”

The former Houston mayor accused Perry of working on state business only seven hours a week, spending $10,000 a month on a rented mansion as the state faces an $18 billion budget crisis and accepting federal stimulus money and using it as a source of state funding.

The media room is too small to accommodate the number of both corporate and alternative media, and blogger row on the convention floor got ten seats instead of the thirty requested, I suppose due to space constraints since we've always had plenty of room in conventions past. So I'll be mostly with my senate district delegation and posting wrap-ups and links like this after the day's events (and dinner and drinks and so on).



TrailBlazers has a few updates on the sidebar issues: the prima-caucus battle, Boyd Richie challenger Michael Barnes' big endorsement, Barbara Radnoksky's SueWallStreet.com gauntlet thrown down to Greg Abbott (he's ignoring the issue and attacking her), and etc.



More later, probably tomorrow. You did recognize the Texas GOP in the cartoons, didn't you?

"Back to Basics" on the air

... in Houston, Dallas, and Austin. This ad really keeps the pressure on Perry, underscoring his extravagant lifestyle at the expense of Texas taxpayers.

With the poll earlier this week showing the race tied, the nominee's keynote at the convention tonight drawing additional media coverage, the Clinton endorsement and now this devastating spot, the White campaign is rolling.



Next report will be from Corpus.

Sybil Gilbert 1929-2010

Deepest condolences to Hank Gilbert on the passing of his mother. Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report with the sad news:

Folks who have been to previous state Democratic conventions know that Agriculture Commissioner candidate Hank Gilbert can deliver a stemwinder of a speech.

Unfortunately, delegates congregating in Corpus Christi this weekend will not be able to hear from him this time.

Gilbert’s 81-year old mother Sybil passed away today. The family has set the funeral for Saturday in Kilgore. There is simply no way for Gilbert to make it from Kilgore to Corpus in time.

The details of the visitation and funeral can be found here.