Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Green Party of Texas holds state meeting this weekend

From the press release:


Texas Greens hold state meeting in Tarrant County June 6-7, 2015

By-laws, amendments, election of state officers, and and 2016 ballot access
retention on agenda for delegates' consensus approval

The Green Party of Texas will hold its annual state meeting this Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, at the United Bethlehem Center, 970 E. Humbolt St., Fort Worth.  Regular party business including the consensus on various by-laws and amendments and the election of state party officers will be conducted, along with party-building workshops and seminars.
Given that 2016 will be a better-than-average year for Democratic candidates for a number of reasons, as well as the state legislature’s continued assault on non-primary parties, discussion on ballot retention will be a primary focus. 

According to outgoing GPTX CoChair kat swift, “Getting and maintaining ballot access is always a problem in Texas.  Once ballot access is attained, state law requires active political parties in Texas to achieve a minimum 5% of the total of votes for any one statewide office in order to maintain ballot status, but with straight-ticket voting this is only possible when one primary party fails to run a candidate.”

In recent years the GPTX has been able to keep its future ballot line by running in at least one statewide race where there was no Democrat entered.  In this last legislative session, a bill to end straight-ticket voting was opposed by both primary party lobbyists, as well as a bill to make non-primary parties pay to get on the general election ballot.

“The state legislature continues to work toward more restrictive access to an already restricted ballot line.  We must be diligent if we wish to continue to provide voters a populist alternative to the corporate-run, two-party duopoly,” swift said.

For more information, including a phone number to call, please contact media committee chair Aaron Renaud at aaron.renaud@gmail.com.

There's a fairly interesting development under way for the 2016 ballot, which I can't blog about until after the vote is taken on Saturday. Stay tuned for that.

Lines form at the Lege exit doors

First were Sylvester Turner and Allen Fletcher, two Houston state reps from opposite sides of the aisle who, as we know, are both pursuing other offices.  Democrat Joe Farias of San Antonio also called it quits along with Belton Republican Jimmie Don Aycock, and yesterday it was Republican Sen. Troy Fraser -- the man who helped make Rick Perry a millionaire as governor -- and the head of the Texas State Bored of Education, Thomas Ratliff.  Kind words were spoken about all of them except Fletcher, from what I can tell.

But nobody, and I do mean nobody, is going to miss Fraser, who "had trouble hearing women's voices" among his many shortcomings.  Aycock is a different story.

"I don't think there is anybody in this body who has garnered the respect that you have for your evenhanded way of dealing with things, authentic way of being, and willingness to do what’s right for the state of Texas,"  state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, told Aycock on the floor Monday.

As House education chair this session, he worked hard to try to fix the school financing method -- ruled unconstitutional by one state judge, under review by the Texas Supreme Court at the moment -- which was unraveled by the last-minute clusterfuck of legislation that bottlenecks our legislature at deadline.  In yesterday's post Gadfly and I had a discussion in the comments about whether the Lege's failure to address this issue might mean a special session before 2017 on the topic.  (I think the answer is 'no' mostly on the basis of Aycock's pulling the plug and not Abbott's pronouncement.)

Charles has more on Fraser, the health challenges of Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, who almost certainly won't be running again, and Ratliff, mentioned also in the update below.  With a blue hurricane forming for 2016, it's possible that Texas could do worse with some of these open seats, but the prospects of improvement appear a little brighter.  Only if some lousy TeaBagger clutching his gun and bible replaces Fraser in the Senate could we consider ourselves worse off.

Update:  But if Kevin Eltife decides not to run for re-election -- or is challenged from his right in a 2016 primary and loses --  then the Texas Senate will be much the worse off.

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Was Abbott's first legislative session a success or a failure?

It's all in the spin.

Republicans -- after changing state Senate rules -- cut taxes, loosened gun laws and boosted border security. They also put off addressing complicated issues such as fixing the school finance system, avoided more contentious proposals such as banning so-called sanctuary cities and repealing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, and, perhaps not coincidentally, averted the special sessions that have become common in recent years.

"Legislators are going home today," Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters after signing a narrow bill to allow Texans to treat epilepsy with an oil derived from marijuana, "and I do not anticipate them coming back until 2017."

No special session is the best news post-Sine Die.  But the many downsides of the 84th include one of the governor's emergency items -- ethics reform -- that died like a dog in the street.

A new loophole elected officials can use to avoid financial disclosure? Check. Giving Texas politicians and bureaucrats special treatment when they commit white-collar crimes in Austin? Done. Keeping the public in the dark about lobbyist wining and dining? Accomplished. Sweeping ethics reform? Not so much.

[...]

“This session there was a real opportunity to improve that process and enhance trust, and instead I think things went backwards,” said Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Watson, who saw his bills shedding light on lobbyist wining and dining go down in flames. “The governor had an emergency declaration that it was supposed to be about ethics, and we’re watching real ethics legislation die a brutal death.”

Aides to Gov. Greg Abbott, who in February called on legislators to “dedicate this session to ethics reform,” did not respond to messages seeking comment about the failure of one his signature initiatives. Abbott has given no hint that he would call a special session on ethics reform.

This part is especially revealing.

One place to start might be the rubble of Senate Bill 19. That major overhaul effort fell apart two days before the clock ran out on the session and quickly dissolved into finger-pointing between the House and Senate over whether to require disclosure of anonymous donations given to politically active nonprofits.

The House wanted it. The Senate didn’t. And efforts at compromise failed.

More on that.

“I’ve already written about (campaign cash disclosures) as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court,” Abbott said. “I wrote that laws like that are unconstitutional, and I based that decision on United States Supreme Court decisions, and I think it’s important for legislators not to try to pass laws that have already been ruled unconstitutional.”

[...]

Abbott aides did not respond to inquiries about what ruling he was talking about, but in 1998 Abbott wrote in a decision for the majority that Bay Area Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse did not have to identify its contributors.

And that's why we need a constitutional amendment.  Back to the original.

Buck Wood, a Democratic lawyer who helped push though ethics reform after the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal shook up Texas politics in the early 1970s, predicted as much several weeks ago, as hearings on the broad reforms were just starting.

“The Legislature is just not willing to regulate itself, and that’s always been the case. It takes some sort of massive scandal to get anything done,” he said Sunday. “I don’t think frankly there was really any serious effort to get it done. There was a lot of talk, but I think that’s all it was — talk.”

That’s not to say lawmakers didn’t do anything to change the laws that affect them, but it wasn’t what the reformers had in mind. Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, managed to tack on an amendment — in two different bills — that opens up a “spousal loophole” allowing politicians to shield details about their spouses' financial holdings.

Huffman was also instrumental in passing a bill creating a unique carve-out for lawmakers accused of public corruption. If Abbott doesn't veto it, no longer will he or other state elected officials be required to face an investigation by local prosecutors in the county where the alleged corruption occurred. Instead, they will face an initial probe by the state police — whose budget the politicians oversee — and then prosecution and trial in the county where they maintain a homestead.

So Abbott can say he batted .800 on "emergency items", but his big whiff on ethics reform is a foul stench that hangs over the Capitol like a dark cloud.  His crack as he signed the medicinal cannabis bill was also something we can wish that Republicans who favor legalization might remember to hold against him.

Surrounded by families whose loved ones have suffered from intractable epilepsy, Abbott insisted that the new law was narrowly tailored for a specific purpose.

"I remain convinced that Texas should not legalize marijuana, nor should Texas open the door for conventional marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes," Abbott said before the signing. "As governor, I will not allow it; SB 339 does not open the door to marijuana in Texas."

But not all medical marijuana advocates are celebrating. Many believe the new law does not go far enough, offering limited options to Texans with epilepsy — the proposal requires a CBD-THC ratio of no more than 20:1 — and nothing for those with other diseases that can be treated with medical marijuana, such as cancer.

So nearly no advancement -- even some regression -- on these matters of concern, but a lot more small-government intrusiveness into the lives of pregnant teenagers.  Teabaggers aren't happy about the lack of progress on their issues, while most of the rest of Texas gives thanks that it wasn't worse.

Win-win?

Only if you're into that 'lesser of two evils' BS.

Update: If you prefer an executive summary of the 84th from the AP's perspective, go here.  And read Texans for Public Justice's take on Abbott's leadership missing in action on ethics reform.

Monday, June 01, 2015

Graham: McCain 2.0

If you liked the Republican nominee in 2008, you'll love Miz Lindsey Graham in 2016.

For those who follow congressional politics, Graham and McCain have been inseparable — and practically indistinguishable — from each other for more than a decade, since Graham arrived to the Senate in 2003. Graham is often spotted just feet from the Senate floor, barking into a flip phone to a staffer about coordinating press strategy with McCain, meaning that “Statement by Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham on [foreign policy issue X]” is a frequent refrain in reporters’ mailboxes. A search of McCain’s Senate website, for example , found 239 press releases mentioning “Lindsey Graham” since 2005, many of which are from the past two years. 

"Invading Iraq after 9/11and capturing Saddam Hussein was the greatest foreign policy success of the last fifty years".  "The surge worked".  All your favorite hits from the Aughties plus this decade's remix: we need ten thousand troops' boots back on the ground in Iraq to fix the mess Obama made when he pulled them out.

The Iraq War, and McCain’s unwavering support of it, hurt him with a war-weary electorate in 2008. Graham, along with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania , will be the only Republicans in the 2016 primary field who actually voted for the Iraq War. (Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton also voted for the war.) 

But perhaps more relevant to the current moment, Graham is currently calling for thousands more U.S. troops to be deployed to Iraq to fight the Islamic State, and the burden will be on the South Carolina Republican to articulate to GOP primary voters what makes him different from McCain and what distinguishes this political moment from the immediate post-9/11 years, when such interventionist fervor and support for the fight in Iraq were at their peak. 

Essentially Sen. Huckleberry J. Butchmeup -- he's never been married, can't imagine why -- is running for president so that he can take shots at Rand Paul.  And to be clear, he's not calling Paul a non-interventionist or even a pacifist.  He's calling him a pussy.

... Graham called Paul weak on foreign policy, saying that his Senate colleague has “been more wrong than right” and that “even Obama is more aggressive.” Similarly, McCain told Fox and Friends (in April): “He just doesn’t understand. He has displayed this kind of naiveté since he came to the Senate.”

When Lindsey Graham says you're a pantywaist... it might be time to send somebody around to whip somebody else's ass.  That is, before he tries to put wood on yours.  I'm. Just. Sayin'.

Paul and Graham clashed most recently in a debate over whether to extend the domestic surveillance provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which coincidentally were set to expire on the very day Graham launched his presidential campaign. C-SPAN cameras even caught Graham rolling his eyes, as Paul, standing behind him, decried a Big Brother-like federal government on the Senate floor.

But that made-for-“The-Daily-Show” moment obscured a much larger division, as previously reported by Yahoo News, between the two politicians and the libertarian-leaning and establishment sides of the Republican Party over what Americans should fear most: government encroachment on civil liberties or uncontrollable insurgent growth in the Middle East that could lead to an attack on the homeland.

While the GOP figures out where they are on spying on the American people -- thank goodness it stopped last night, but here it comes again this morning -- it's still on Graham to determine a broader vision for his being commander-in-chief than just more war.

South Carolina’s importance as an early primary state — the first in the South —could make Graham’s presence in the field a disruptive force for other conservatives, although recent polling from the state suggests that even though voters there have overwhelmingly elected Graham to Congress, on multiple occasions, they’re not too keen on his presidential run. 

Palmetto bugs, greasy biscuits, mosquitoes as big as drones, and shrimp and grits.  Those Low Country hillbillies will certainly be separating the GOP sugar from the cane next spring.


Which one will be the last rat standing?  Your guess is as good as mine.

The Weekly Wrangle


The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone -- even Ted Cruz -- is dry and safe as it brings you this week's roundup of lefty blog posts from our rather soaked Lone Star State.

Off the Kuff reviewed how several bad bills met their end in the waning days of the legislative session.

Letters from Texas worries about the possible effect of the Supreme Court taking up the latest Texas redistricting case.

Lightseeker at Texas Kaos shines a bright light on the woeful lack of responsible, adult leadership among some in the Texas Legislature: Texas Legislators Who Put the Child in Childish.

Socratic Gadfly, with a hat tip to a fellow TPA blogger and his favorite name for a certain Southern senator, killed the birds of both Rick Santorum and another possible GOP candidate.

Hillary Clinton visits Houston on Thursday to collect an award and raise funds, notes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is appalled at the level of racism and xenophobia exhibited by Texas Republicans who deny birth certificates to Texans born to not properly documented mothers.

From WCNews at Eye on Williamson: There are many Texans that need a government that works for them and not just for business, corporations and wealthy campaign donors.  It's been a windfall for business, and scraps for the rest of us.

Egberto Willies indicates that America needs more from Hillary Clinton at this stage than 'listening and learning', while McBlogger takes a swipe at Bernie Sanders.

The Lewisville Texan Journal posted about the flooding in North Texas, while Neil at All People Have Value said that floods in Houston forced people to yield some habitat to wildlife, if only for a brief time. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

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

The Queso documents flood effects in Wimberley and rounds up a bunch of flood-related resources for those who need them.

Eric Berger tries to explain where all that rain came from.

Offcite has ten of the major changes to I-45 wrapping around downtown Houston that you might not have been aware of.

Free Press Houston recapped the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions, which included a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Texas Vox celebrates an expansion of homeowners' solar rights.

Ashton Garcia advocates for gender-neutral bathrooms.

The SA Current introduces us to "Mansplainer: The Statue".

RG Ratcliffe reminds us that the Lege is hoarding $18 billion of our money.

jobsanger sees the Texas Senate's emphasis on bigotry in this past session.

And Chris Hooks took note of one of the stranger bonds formed during the 84th Session: The Texas Observer and Dr. Steven Hotze.