Monday, October 14, 2013

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance thanks Ted Cruz for his hard work making the Republican Party more unpopular than ever as it brings you this week's roundup.


Off the Kuff connects a flap over reduced tuition at UTSA for same-sex spouses of active military members to the 2014 campaign.

Horwitz at Texpatriate reports on the Houston mayoral debate, noting that no matter who you thought the winner was, the real losers were Houstonians themselves.

Of all of Greg Abbott's mistakes, one stands out like a sore thumb: he birthed Ted Cruz. Then again, Democrats should really thank "Poop" for what he's accomplished recently on their behalf.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs knows you have to take a little bad news with the good when it comes to Abbott and his protege'.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme thinks picking turncoat Aaron Peña to do Hispanic outreach for republicans is ludicrous. Good luck with that.

Though we often take them for granted, streets are vastly important to our communities. They're the true lifeblood of any community. Whether we're are traveling to work, visiting friends, or any reason that we need to get from point A to point B, that journey starts and ends with our streets. Which is why Texas Leftist was glad to hear of a landmark initiative for Complete Streets in Houston. It's been a long time coming.

Neil at All People Have Value said this week that the things you had ordered from Amazon have arrived. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw tells it like it is, in Deadbeats, Bums, Extortionists and Saboteurs. Give it a read.

======================

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

Egberto Willies prints a letter to Rep. Ted Poe from one of his constituents.

The Texas Monitor implores Latinas to run with Wendy.

Juanita Jean shows what real political junkies do on their weekends.

Nancy Sims evaluates the Houston mayoral debate.

Rep. Mike Villarreal explains how to get help with the health insurance exchange.

The TSTA blog observes that the Rainy Day Fund is in excellent shape.

AzulTX reports from the immigration reform rally in Houston.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

What Ted Cruz has accomplished... for Democrats

Extending the premise advanced in yesterday's post with regard to the fact that Ted Cruz is Greg Abbott's biggest mistake...

First, recall that it was Abbott who hired Cruz to serve as solicitor general for the state of Texas in 2003, where he worked for five years.  During that time Cruz argued several significant cases, including nine times before the SCOTUS.  From the Cruz Wiki page...

In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In addition to his victory in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the constitutionality of Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in Van Orden v. Perry.

Cruz authored a U.S. Supreme Court brief for all 50 states successfully defending the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, winning 9-0 in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.

Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.

Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.

That is a cornucopia of "Hall of Shame" conservative litigation.   It's noteworthy that Abbott's won-loss record in lawsuits of all kinds has gone down significantly since Cruz left his employ.

But this post is about mistakes, and Cruz made plenty while he was SG.

In his ongoing gambit to claim Greg Abbott’s record as his own, Ted Cruz has opened up his record to intense scrutiny from Texas voters.

It has been revealed that Cruz as a bureaucratic lawyer severely mishandled a court case that would have expedited justice and punished child rapists with the ultimate penalty.

The Texas Legislature passed “Jessica’s Law,” which imposes the death penalty on certain child rapists. Several states joined Texas in calling for justice, and liberals sued, claiming the laws were unconstitutional.

Greg Abbott told Ted Cruz to defend the law before the Supreme Court, but Cruz completely failed to perform elementary research surrounding the death penalty, and Texas’ law was rejected.
"The oversight became the basis of an unsuccessful effort to get the Supreme Court to rehear the case. The request for rehearing noted that the oversight was a ‘significant error.’"
Cruz’s “significant error” caused the Texas law to be defeated, and tougher penalties for child rapists were dismissed.

Cruz doesn’t mention this embarrassing error when he gives speeches. He instead ignores his failures and claims credit for Greg Abbott’s leadership. In fact, he won’t even publicly admit that his appalling incompetence during the case had any significance.
"At the time, however, Cruz was concerned that a New York Times reporter might write that the office of the solicitor general ‘screwed up by not finding (the military provision)’…"
Official correspondence from a defeated Ted Cruz illustrated his attempt to hide his malfeasance.
"Would love to have some sort of response so we don’t look silly," Cruz wrote to a lawyer in the attorney general’s office.

There's a lot more at the link.  But let's just concern ourselves with the present day, as Abbott bids for governor and Cruz keeps the federal government shut down.  In a nutshell, over the past thirty days Ted Cruz has almost single-handedly resurrected the Democratic Party nationally. "Single-handedly" contains only a little bit of hype, since he couldn't have done it without help from John Boehner and these 32 schmucks in the House.  But the accomplishments are still remarkable:

-- A month ago, Democrats were divided and fighting over Obama as it looked as if the nation would go to war in Syria.  Now the party is united again. (!)

-- The Affordable Healthcare Act was polling badly; now it is trending up.  (!!)

-- Obamacare's glitch-filled start has been obscured by the GOP's machinations over the shutdown -- including Cruz's "filibuster" --  and many Americans are blaming that on the shutdown instead of the administration. (!!!)

-- A tight governor's race in Virginia now has the Democrat starting to pull away.  The Republican nominee, a Tea Party moron named Ken Cuccinelli, skillfully avoided having his picture taken with Cruz at a GOP dinner where they were both keynoting.  (!!!!)

-- Cruz's private practice client way back in 1998, Speaker Boehner, is on the verge of being ousted by the crazies in his caucus.  (!!!!!)

Give Abbott a little credit for recognizing the "Poop" Cruz disaster and trying to distance himself from it, but that won't endear him to the kooks who vote in the TXGOP primary.  As with his weak attempts to court Latinos, Abbott is rolling over thin ice.  There is little doubt that Texas Republicans are eventually going to rue the day that Ted Cruz burst on the scene.  And Greg Abbott owns that.

This past Friday I made a phone call to my Congressman, John Culberson, speaking to a staffer who answered the phone, and it went like this:

"First let me say that your job must be awfully tough right now and I sympathize with you, particularly as your boss is trying to take away your employer-provided health care.  That said, I want to thank Mr. Culberson for the excellent work he is doing for the Democratic Party.  A month ago there was no hope that Democrats could retake the House, but thanks to the work done by he and the other Tea Party caucus members, there are now 24 Congressional districts that have moved from 'likely Republican' to the toss-up category.  Please pass on my gratitude and tell him to keep up the good work."

Yes, you can use that when you call Ted Cruz's office next week.

Update: "Ted Cruz was a smelly, terrible roommate." LMAO

Kinky's in for Ag Commish

As a Democrat. And he's running on weed.

"The better Wendy does, the better we will do," (Friedman) said. "And we will also be able to bring a lot of independent voters and people who have never voted before."

Friedman, who describes himself as "an old time Harry Truman Democrat," had been mulling a gubernatorial bid. He previously expressed interest in promoting the legalization of marijuana and casino gambling in Texas. On Saturday, he said that the two issues would remain a part of his platform as a candidate for ag commissioner, especially the idea that the state should "legalize, cultivate, tax and regulate marijuana."

"It could be an economic engine for the state, enabling us to do whatever we want to do," he said.

What's significant this time around is that Texans are polling solidly in favor not just of decriminalization, but legalization.  And half of those folks describe themselves as Republican.  Normalizing marijuana laws is, as we are all aware, a national trend.  It's building a head of steam in simliar fashion to the increasing tolerance for marriage equality.

The weed issue and the gambling thing are indeed big deals to people who aren't usually drawn to the polls.  And it's not like the TXGOP is going to have any advocates for those, anyway.

Friedman acknowledged that he is not currently an expert on major issues such as water policy, nor is he much of a bureaucrat. But like Jim Hightower, the state's last Democratic agriculture commissioner, he said he hoped to expand the scope of the state's Department of Agriculture to bring attention to issues he feels are important. "I would like to do something for rural Texas," he said, adding that he also hoped to reach out to people who currently felt left out of politics.

My emphasis.  That's Republican heartland, and if Friedman pulls soft Republicans and non-voters to the polls to vote for him... why, they just might vote for a few other Democrats as well.

I've been real harsh on Kinky in too many posts to count, so I'm going to soften up a little myself and say: let him run.  Why?

-- He draws earned media, and as long as he isn't making a racial joke, that isn't hurting.

-- There have been worse Democratic nominees for statewide office, Lord knows.

-- As it relates to his topics, most of the people I know personally who are smoking dope and eligible to vote live in the suburbs and vote Republican, if they vote at all.  The proponents of casino gambling, on the other hand, cut across all demographics, all classes, all geography.  The only people steadfastly opposed to these are evangelical conservatives, who have far too much influence in state government.  Pruning back that invasive species benefits all Texans.  And if Kinky will hire someone who can get him up to speed on the water issues -- and eminent domain -- then he might actually make a real difference in breaking the Republican stranglehold on exurban and rural voters.

That's not a bad thing.  A blue Texas, or a more purple one, has to see that sort of thing happen organically anyway, so why not let Kinky spread some seeds and see what happens?

(I hope I don't come to regret this quasi-endorsement.)

Sunday Funnies