Clinton-Castro 2016: done deal

Not talking about the White House chances yet.  Just the Democratic ticket (and the yard signs, the bumper stickers, and all that swag).

Henry Cisneros, who was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for former President Bill Clinton, adds more fuel to the growing fire that former San Antonio Mayor and current HUD Secretary Julián Castro is at the top of Hillary Clinton's list of potential vice presidential running mates.

"What I am hearing in Washington, including from people in Hillary Clinton’s campaign, is that the first person on their lists is Julián Castro," said Cisneros, according to the transcript of an interview taped with Univision's Al Punto.

The public affairs show airs on Sundays at 10 a.m. on Univision 23-WLTV in Miami.

"... They don’t have a second option," said Cisneros, "because he is the superior candidate considering his record, personality, demeanor and Latin heritage."

Who said it first?  I know I said it 18 months ago.  If you're thinking progressive, though, you'd still be mistaken.  Castro is as centrist and cautious as they come.  Still, the race in Texas would be exciting, liven things up a lot for Democrats down the ballot, like Pete Gallego for one.  Should help the Ds a great deal locally, especially if Ed Gonzales runs for Harris County sheriff, for another.

The GOP would have to match that, so my early money goes on a Walker-Rubio ticket.  I'm guessing Ted Cruz is less likely to be involved because he's just too nuts for moderate conservatives (sic).  And it's about 18 months until we vote in November of 2016, so remember you heard that Republican pairing here first.

Update: The Hill, via Pensito Review, list the ten Senate races Democrats are mostly likely to flip in 2016.  Wisconsin moved to the top of the list with Russ Feingold's announcement last week.

Update II: If you prefer a more cynical take on Clinton-Castro 2016, then read Joe Concha.

B.B. King died last night, and so did a lot of bills in the Texas Lege

-- First, let's pay our respects to the legend.



-- "Big Tex" Cecil Bell's anti-gay marriage bill died at midnight, but may rise as a zombie if it can find a live one to latch onto.

Bills he has authored this session would do everything from taking the ability to issue marriage licenses away from county clerks to stripping salaries from local or state employees who issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Bell's strongest bid fell short Thursday night when House Bill 4105, a bill that would have forbidden state or local governments from using public funds to issue same-sex marriage licenses, failed to pass the House before midnight — the deadline for House bills.

Enough Republicans had signed on as co-sponsors to guarantee the bill's passage had it reached the floor, and Democrats spent Thursday prolonging debate in an attempt to run down the clock and prevent Bell's legislation from being heard — a practice called "chubbing." They were ultimately successful.

While the bill is now dead, Bell is not out of moves. He could still attempt to attach an amendment to a related Senate bill.

"From my perspective, no bill is dead as long as there are are other bills in front. You just have to find something that's germane," Bell said after passage of the House deadline spawned hope among opponents that the measure is done with for this session. “The session still moves on.”

Marriage equality advocates remain on watch to destroy its brain.  More on how it went down last night, and the ramifications moving forward, from RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog.

Update: Once again, well-analyzed and well-written from Hooks at the Observer.

It was a very dumb bill from the start, and mismanaged by its supporters even by the low standards of the Texas Legislature. It was filed very late—literally on the last day a bill could be filed, March 13—and then it sat around. By the time it was eligible to come to the House floor, it was so far back on the calendar that it became easy for Democrats to talk and talk and talk—a tactic known as “chubbing,” for some probably ungodly reason—until the midnight Thursday deadline for considering yet-unpassed House bills.

Immediately, the posturing began. Democrats celebrated the death of 4105 as a triumph of legislative cunning and tenacity. Conservatives bashed House leadership while simultaneously claiming the bill’s existence was evidence they were “#StillWinning,” even if the bill got hara-kiri’ed. On Friday, the overwhelming majority of the House GOP caucus pledged their undying support of traditional marriage in a flowery letter. They wanted the bill to have passed so bad, they said.

It makes perfect sense for the Democrats to claim total victory here, especially since they will have few other chances this session. Gay marriage and gay rights are a huge issue for the party, though it’s hard to predict the practical consequences of Bell’s bill given that the Supreme Court soon might effectively sweep away the relevant statutes. And Democrats certainly were a major reason why the bill died: Chubbing isn’t as tough as filibustering, but they did smart work over the last week to slow the process just enough.

But if they hit a home run here, it’s because they got an easy pitch. Most House GOPers, whatever their other faults, still know a stupid bill when they see one. There’s a general level of acknowledgement in many quarters—even among some social conservatives—that the increasingly Sisyphean struggle against gay marriage is a lost cause, and a distraction from causes the godly folk really care about, like abortion. (Importantly, the business lobby, the Legislature’s one true Almighty Power, is tired of these shenanigans.)

In other words, if House Republicans wanted this to pass, it would have.

Bolton out, leaves us with: "Clinton has no problem getting to the left of Warren"

It is to laugh out loud with one's ass falling off.

(Former UN Ambassador John) Bolton’s decision not to run for President is a good thing for our country, but it means the loss of a great deal of entertainment. Bolton would not have been the only Republican extremist to run for President in 2016, but he might have been the most bizarre one. He has a frumpy grumpy kind of right wing outrage that makes him fun to watch, and he’s fond of making categorical statements that are thoroughly unanchored to reality.

For instance, Bolton recently declared that Hillary Clinton “doesn’t have any problem getting to the left of Elizabeth Warren.”

I know I have ripped on a few people about this already.  The point here is that it's not just me.

As a United States senator, Elizabeth Warren has been an opponent of government surveillance. Hillary Clinton was part of the Obama Administration that perpetrated it.

Elizabeth Warren opposes fracking. Hillary Clinton supports it.

Elizabeth Warren speaks out strongly in opposition to global warming. Hillary Clinton is mostly silent on the subject.

Elizabeth Warren has been an outspoken critic of Walmart’s systematic economic exploitation of poverty here in the United States and around the world. Hillary Clinton was on Walmart’s board of directors.

Elizabeth Warren opposed bankruptcy restrictions that force people to keep repaying enormous college loans even when they have lost their jobs and everything they own. Hillary Clinton voted for them.

Elizabeth Warren is a critic of free trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership. Hillary Clinton supports them. 

At least she was prior to announcing her campaign for president.  She's been silent since.

Elizabeth Warren opposed George W. Bush’s rush to invade Iraq in 2003. Hillary Clinton voted in favor of it.

No, Hillary Clinton is not to the left of Elizabeth Warren. In fact, Hillary Clinton is to the right of most Democrats. John Bolton and his supporters are off so far over on the right wing of American politics, however, that everything on this side of Rush Limbaugh looks Communist to them.

Bernie Sanders and Clinton -- Warren is standing in for Sanders in the above, in case you overlooked that -- are also poles apart on the PATRIOT Act, in 2001.

So let's all wave goodbye to Yosemite Sam John Bolton, but his fever dreams of calling Hillary Clinton a socialist will never die.  They'll be picked up by the rest of the GOP field and flogged like American Pharoah in the Kentucky Derby.  And keep in mind that if rightists call Clinton a leftist, and Democrats call Hillary a progressive, they're both incorrect in essentially the same way.  Besides... they're all socialists anyway.

Aycock euthanizes school finance bill, focus shifts to budget battle

The Lege will wait for the Texas Supreme Court to weigh in on the latest lawsuit, arguments beginning sometime this fall, before scheduling a special session after that to deal with it.  So maybe next year.

A $3 billion effort to boost and overhaul how Texas public schools are funded died Thursday when the author of the legislation withdrew it ahead of a key deadline.

The proposal, House Bill 1759, crafted in response to a lawsuit alleging insufficient funding in the system, would simplify and bring more equity to the system, in addition to the extra funding.

It would also reduce the number of districts forced to send property tax revenue back to the state under Texas' "recapture" or "Robin Hood" system that shifts money from property-rich to property-poor districts.

Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, the Killeen Republican and House Education Committee chairman who sponsored the measure, said Thursday it was tantamount to "tearing up and starting over" with the system for funding to educate the state's 5.4 million schoolchildren.

The complex proposal cleared Aycock's committee on a 7-0 vote last month, but it was seen as a long shot in the more conservative state Senate.

It's been death by chub for the past few days, and even as this is posted, in the Capitol.

“We could kill all day with this bill, easily,” he said. “I don’t think it is fair to leave this bill pending and kill everything else when we know already the Senate will probably and almost certainly not even consider the measure if we pass it.”

[...]

A state district judge last year ruled that the Legislature has failed to meet its constitutional duty to adequately and fairly fund education for the state’s five million public school students. The decision came in a lawsuit filed by more than 600 school districts, including Dallas and several others from North Texas.

Aycock and House leaders argued earlier this year that lawmakers should get started on a funding fix now rather than wait for the high court to tell them what to do. So they filed legislation, approved by the House Public Education Committee, to correct the deficiencies highlighted in the court case.

The measure, relying on a $3 billion boost in state funding for public schools, would provide more money for schools that educate about 94 percent of the students in Texas. Most Dallas-area districts would see a significant increase under the bill. The Dallas school district see its funding jump about $32 million a year, an increase of 3.2 percent.

“We wanted to do the most good for the most students,” Aycock said. He pointed out that the plan “gives schools more resources and delivers them in a smarter and more effective way…while presenting a major opportunity to improve public education in Texas.”

One of the major changes is a reduction in the amount of Robin Hood “recapture” in the system, where high property wealth districts are required to share their revenue with other districts to equalize funding. The House bill cuts that amount by $321 million a year.

The biggest resistance to the House plan was in the Senate, where leaders indicated they wanted to wait for the Supreme Court ruling. No hearings on school finance have been held in the Senate in the current legislative session.

Ah yes, the Texas Senate.  The crucible of extreme conservative governing has bubbled over several times in recent days, with the dregs in the kettle still simmering in the last days of the session.  The next big fight, the state's budget with its accompanying tax cut squabbles, is being held under the big, hairy foot of Dan Patrick.  (This is the Mayweather/Pacquiao equivalent in the 84th.)  House leader Dennis Bonnen is chafing under the lieutenant governor's yoke, and shows no sign of yielding.  So we're headed for a showdown.  Chris Hooks at the Texas Observer nails it.

Bonnen, a Lege veteran, charged Patrick with making “some errors in his exuberance.” He laughed at the idea that Patrick offered his plan to boost local school districts. He suggested Patrick hadn’t done much “punching the numbers.”

We’re entering the last stages of one of the strangest and most consequential standoffs of the session: The fight over whether the crummy tax plan originating in the Senate or the crummy tax plan originating in the House should pass. The former would reduce property tax growth and cut business taxes, and the latter would cut sales taxes and business taxes.

Bonnen’s talk this week—along with op-eds he wrote for major Texas newspapers—are his way of laying down the law. He’s demonstrating, exhaustively, that property tax cuts will not pass the House this session—if there was any doubt about it before. (There shouldn’t have been, but some on the Senate side have been a bit slow on the uptake lately.)

In committee Tuesday, he emphasized something else: If the tax impasse results in a special session, the Legislature should be ashamed.

“I think there’s absolutely no excuse and we should all be embarrassed if we’re in a special session,” he said. “There’s no reason.”

[...]

So to sum up, the two chambers are having an ego contest over two poorly constructed and faulty tax cut packages. Privately, most reps don’t really care about the House plan, and most senators don’t care about the Senate plan. Neither is enthusiastic about the policy particulars involved. But because neither wants to let the other “win,” we’re headed toward either a pointless special session in which both sides still can’t “win,” or a third option, Bonnen’s proposed compromise, that’s even worse. Take pride, ladies and gentlemen, in your 84th Legislature.

Update: More from RG Ratcliffe and Erica Grieder.

Is Jeb Bush's candidacy dying in the crib?

As I am weary of fulminating against Hillary Clinton and other flailing, failing Democrats, let's check in with the alleged GOP inevitable one.  He's been having a bad month, so much so that it's not too early to question his inevitability.

1.  He's losing Iowa so badly that he's just not going to show up for any corndogs.

2.  There's some good news, however: he's leading in New Hampshire.  No one save Bill Clinton in the modern era has lost both Iowa and NH and gone on to the White House.  And recent polling suggests that the Granite State might even be pink.  (I questioned that back here.)

3.  But he's fading in South Carolina behind Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and possibly other arch-conservatives, though as the macro-view US News article notes, SC polls tend to reshuffle after IA and NH vote.  Those Low Country folk like to jump on and off the various bandwagons.  The Palmetto State has grand family history as comeback territory for Bushes; remember John McCain's illegitimate black child?  But it might be Jeb's Combahee River this time.

What state comes after South Carolina?  Does it matter if he loses all three of those?  Will his hundred million bucks still be able pull his fat out of the fire if he loses two out of three?  He revealed himself this week as possibly being the dumber of the two Bush brothers, a truly remarkable achievement.

Jeb Bush on Tuesday sought to arrest a chorus of criticism from Democrats and some conservatives after he told an interviewer that, knowing what history has since shown about intelligence failures, he still would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Calling in to Sean Hannity’s syndicated radio show, Bush said he had misunderstood a question that one of Hannity’s Fox News colleagues, Megyn Kelly, had asked him in an interview shown on Sunday and Monday nights.

“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess,” Bush said. “I was talking about, given what people knew then.”

The attempt at mopping-up was quick, but it did not bring the controversy to an immediate end: When Hannity asked about the 2003 Iraq invasion again, in yes-or-no fashion, Bush said he did not know what the answer would have been, saying, “That’s a hypothetical.” Then, he seemed to go out of his way to absolve his brother, former President George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion: “Mistakes were made, as they always are in life,” Bush said.

Indeed they are.  And it looks as if rank-and-file Republicans and their kooky cousins aren't going to repeat the mistakes they have made in the past by voting for another Bush.  That might be the most exciting thing that could develop in 2015 for 2016.

Update: And now Jeb's porn problem surfaces.  No way the GOP nominates this guy.

A day after filibuster on TPP, Senate Dems fold like a cheap card table *Updated*

That post I wrote this morning?  Yeah, nemmind about that.

Less than a day after blocking the Obama administration's path to a secretive trade deal, Senate Democrats have accepted an offer put forth by Republicans. The Democrats, led by Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, came to accept the deal after personal lobbying from President Obama.

Some Democrats believed that a package of four trade bills would move along together, thus ensuring that Obama couldn't obtain fast-track authority without enforcement measures, but they ended up backing down on this as well. A Huffington Post story quotes Senator Sherrod Brown justifying the decision: "I understand that all four aren't going to be together exactly the way I want it, I understand that, but I can read votes. I also think that nobody saw us being successful yesterday three days out. And people have strong feelings about the customs enforcement and people have strong feelings about taking care of workers."

The new deal would allow the administration to begin negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal which has been criticized by labor unions and environmental activists. The economist Joseph Stiglitz recently wrote that, "These agreements go well beyond trade, governing investment and intellectual property as well, imposing fundamental changes to countries’ legal, judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without input or accountability through democratic institutions."

Gadfly also takes them apart over it.  Looks like we're back to being "sanctimonious purists".  I'm more convinced every day that we don't have the best government money can buy, we have the absolute worst.  And I would simply ask, since somebody else already mentioned that TPP is about the next president and not just this one: how is Hillary Clinton going to be any better on it for anybody on the left side of the Democratic party?

Update:  This.

The way Clinton and her advisers are thinking about this, apparently, is that there’s nothing forcing her to take a controversial stand, on trade or anything else. As long as no one who appears to be an overly serious threat is competing for support among the party’s various factions, then there’s no percentage in volunteering opinions that will inevitably create some ill will and give the media some conflict to write about. 

So instead, she goes around telling Democratic audiences that she’d do even more for immigrants than Obama has, or that she supports alternative sentencing for drug crimes. This is like telling Republicans you believe in God. 

But in fact, the Clinton people have the whole thing backward. This glide path toward the nomination that they assume they’re on isn’t an opportunity to hide from controversy; it’s an opportunity to show you can lead, clearly and thoughtfully. And that’s because, even if you get through the primaries unscathed, you’re going to have to confront your biggest vulnerability among general-election voters, which is this idea that Clinton does only what’s expedient.  

[...]

Clinton’s patronizing evasion on the trade deal, on the other hand, reinforces that impression. And if she waits until the summer of 2016 to actually choose sides on anything contentious, it may well be too late to turn that perception around. Remember that Clinton is trying to win a third term for her party, which is an exceptionally difficult task under any circumstances. 

There was an irony this week in watching Obama and Clinton, once again the two-headed hydra of Democratic politics, navigating their way through a decision point for their party. When it came to trade, he was direct, genuine and competitive. She was cautious, noncommittal, playing not to lose. 

That was precisely the contrast between them in 2008, and it didn’t work out for Clinton then. That Obama isn’t running against her doesn’t mean it will ultimately work out better this time.