Mark Jones tries to take down Wendy Davis

And fails. As usual.

Since her filibuster on June 25, activists, politicians and pundits within and outside of Texas have been discussing a possible 2014 gubernatorial bid by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth. However, beyond her pivotal role in temporarily derailing a strict omnibus anti-abortion bill and her compelling life story, most Texans, let alone most Americans, know little about Davis. An analysis of her voting record on the Senate floor helps partially fill this informational lacuna, highlighting that during her tenure Davis has been one of the Texas Senate’s most liberal members.

Now you can click over and read Jones' data and interpretations for yourself, but you don't have to possess a doctorate to recognize political quackery disguised as political science. Just use Dr. Jones' own figures.

Jones asserts Wendy Davis is the 4th most liberal senator, and then charts a voting record that is all but identical to six of her colleagues. His words: "Her ideological position is statistically indistinguishable from that of the other six Democratic senators."

So if that's true, what weight is given data that makes her fourth most liberal and not one of the 6 others? By this same measurement, Jane Nelson -- yeah, that Jane Nelson -- is the 4th most conservative state senator, more so than Troy Fraser, Tommy Williams, Glenn Hegar, and Bob Estes. And every Republican in Texas is laughing out loud right now. Update II: In preparing my personal legislative scorecard at the Texas Tribune, Nelson was the Republican whose votes I agreed with the most often (a stunning 86%).

And if you have a bias hiding somewhere in the numbers that's so obvious that I can see it.... why are you even trying to hide it?

This is called cherry-picking... and then making Robitussin with the cherries instead of wine. Jones has hacked up a "too-librul" furball and needed some cough suppressant.

To be clear, I have excoriated Dr. Jones and his opinions more frequently in this space than even I had thought. Here's what I wrote two years ago when he suggested that the defeat of sanctuary cities bills in that legislative session was a "strategic victory" for Rick Perry. Jones was eventually compelled to back up and rewrite on that, and I kicked him while he was down. In searching for those I found about ten more posts eviscerating the good doctor. And when I say 'eviscerate', I mean his lower GI tract was removed and replaced with PVC pipe.

I stopped reading his dreck a while back because the sniffs I heard at the end of every sentence were just too obnoxious to endure, but I gave him another chance recently when he appeared on teevee with Khambrel Marshall and David Big Jolly Jennings. I couldn't make it to the end of the broadcast without calling my dentist to schedule a gum-scraping. I figured that would be less painful.

I am not joking; compared to Mark Jones, Marc Campos has searing political insights -- and real keen baseball knowledge, too.

Anyway, Jones buried the lede.

Paul Burka, Patricia Kilday Hart, Ross Ramsey and others have identified multiple hurdles Davis would face were she to run for governor in 2014. To those I would add one more: Davis would be competing for statewide office in what is still a very red state with the legislative voting record of a relatively liberal Texas Democrat.

Well knock me over with a feather: Texas is as red as a baboon's ass in heat and hasn't elected a statewide Democrat in a generation. And Wendy Davis is a Democrat. You don't think the past might be prologue, do you? Let's gather some data and plot a graph.

(This baloney makes almost as much sense as the TexTrib's own polls. Yeah, I've blogged about those too until I'm tired of doing so. They're so mad at me they don't link over here any more.)

Dr. Jones should have simply saved himself the trouble and just gone all Ronald Reagan "librul-librul-librul" on Sen. Davis. He could have at least updated Reagan's smear with some of Rush Limbaugh's or Ann Coulter's spew; they've both made fortunes off that 'Liberals-R-e-VILL!' schtick. But I suppose he thinks what he's doing isn't the same thing.

Actually, it is. Calling someone the "most liberal senator" was the very first argument made against both John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, and Jones knows it's a dog whistle only right ears can hear. But he had to go and ruin his credibility again. 

I have a hard time believing that Rice University cannot do better than this in the poly-sci department, and that's even if they wanted someone who was the academic equivalent of Karl Rove or Frank Luntz. Mark Jones must be tenured harder than the mortar between the bricks under the ivy. I'm guessing that without something that meets the definition of moral turpitude, they're stuck with him out there for another twenty-five years or so.

And I doubt that remains a long enough time for him to see any librul get elected governor of Texas.

Update: Greg has a similar opinion of Dr. Jones (it's more courteous than mine, but still pretty harsh on his figures and his conclusions).

As dumb as bean dip

That's what Juanita said on Facebook about Jodie Laubenberg, the House sponsor of the Texas abortion restrictions legislation almost ready to be sent to the Texas Senate. More about Representative "Cleaned Out" has been previously written here and here, and Kuffner has the morning's best update on where things stand for the moment.

Just another bit of hypocrisy about Laubenberg that needs wider distribution.

Texas State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R), the author of the radically anti-abortion bill making its way through the Texas Legislature this week, argued for hours on Tuesday that lawmakers should support her bill because of its strong protections for a person's "pre-born life."

The bill, HB 2, responds to "the definite death to the 70,000-plus babies who have been aborted in this state," Laubenberg said during remarks on the House floor. "HB 2 focuses on both the child and the woman."

But back in 2007, she made the case against treating the unborn as people -- at least, when it comes to qualifying for health care services.

Worth repeating for emphasis: they're pre-born babies when we want to score an emotional political point, and they are not if we have to pay for their health care. Pre-born, born, or in any other condition (that defies explanation or understanding).

During a House debate on an appropriations bill that year, Laubenberg, a staunch conservative, put forward an amendment that would require expectant mothers to wait three months before they could begin receiving prenatal and perinatal care under the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, a program that helps cover uninsured children in low-income families.

Laubenberg's amendment drew criticism from Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchia, who said the change would mean that more than 95,000 children, in utero, would be kicked out of the CHIP program. As the two sparred over whether that was true -- Anchia cited CHIP data from hospitals, Laubenberg alleged it was "misinformation" -- Anchia asked if Laubenberg recognized those in-utero babies as people.

"You do know, don't you, that these are U.S. citizens?" Anchia asked.

"But they're not born yet," Laubenberg said.

Laubenberg's response drew a look of shock from Democratic Rep. Dawnna Dukes, who could be seen standing next to Anchia during the exchange. Anchia also appeared to relish the moment as he pressed Laubenberg that she was now arguing against treating a fetus as a person. "That's the whole point, see?" Anchia said. "You have an anti-life amendment."

Laubenberg fired back that there is "no one more pro-life" in the House than her, and again said Anchia's data was wrong. Still, something he said must have rattled her because she pulled down her amendment.

"I will be back," Laubenberg said as she prepared to leave the podium. "But right now, out of consideration for the body, I will pull this amendment down."

Yep, there's video.

There just aren't appropriate words to better demonstrate all that Texas Republicans stand for -- and against -- than Rep. Laubenberg's own. What we are witnessing in our state legislature today, and over the next several days, is some of the most powerful dishonesty human beings are capable of.

I just hope people can remember it a year and a half from now.

What fighting back in Texas looks like

At the Senate committee hearings on the abortion restrictions legislation being jammed through the Legislature, a young woman's testimony -- and the response it drew from chair Jane Nelson as well as the four state troopers who dragged her away from the mic -- is today's gas on the fire that started burning two weeks ago.

That is Sarah Slamen, known on Twitter as @VictorianPrude, who also served as the campaign manager for Amy Price's Houston city council campaign in 2011. You can read the text of her remarks here (scroll down about halfway to the bottom, until you see the YouTube similar to the above). After she was removed from the hearing room -- there's also video of that -- she was interviewed at Daily Kos.

She's barely a Democrat, much like me, to some degree because so many Democrats are simply willing to be well-behaved in the face of the authoritarian fascism that is being presented in the cramped conference rooms and marbled halls of the Capitol building. And the reaction that not-so-well-behaved women receive -- and their place in history -- should not be lost on anyone. Especially Democrats.

In yesterday's post about the people not named Wendy Davis who might be the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor of Texas, the qualities that they possess are so far removed from those that Sarah Slamen owns as to be alien to each other in comparison. Nobody (except for Wendy Davis) who might stand for statewide office in 2014 is half that brave, half that bold.

It's a shame Sarah is leaving Texas for New York, as we need lots more like her in Austin. And in Washington. And not just protesting and testifying, either.

The Bayou and Politics USA with more. And with Lawrence O'Donnell the following day to finish her testimony.

Update: It is valuable to observe that with the dearth of progressive populist candidates, conservative populist ones will attempt to fill the vacuum.

“Texans feel they aren’t being heard by political insiders who wield power,” (GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Pauken) said in a statement. “There’s a style of governance that has developed even within our own Republican party’s leadership where primary allegiance goes to those who write the big checks, and powerful insiders pick and choose what issues get taken care of in Austin.”

Hell, I just wish I could find some Democrats who could bring themselves to agree with me that having their message co-opted like this is an embarrassment.