The Cost to Stay on Top

     Texas Republicans have had it pretty easy for the last decade.   With no Democrat being elected into a state-wide office since 1994 there has been little to no road blocks for them getting their way.  Of course, this can’t go on forever, can it?  The rising minority population and influx of out of state immigration into Texas’ urban areas makes me think that this period of Republican power is coming to an eventual end.  In the last few years I have noticed what I consider to be unscrupulous acts being performed to keep this rising tide of possible Democrat votes from reaching a critical mass.

At the Federal level the stakes surrounding the immigration reform would have huge impacts on the political landscape of Texas.   If it ever actually happens then it could streamline the path for immigrants to gain citizenship into the United States.  This huge influx of low to middle income minority families would probably result in a lot more votes going to the Democrats.   Republicans in general have a vested interest in keeping this from happening, considering Texas supplies 32 legislators to the U.S. Congress, a rise in Democrat representatives could tip the scale in the House.  It is no wonder why immigration reform has had such tough opposition.

     One of the unscrupulous tactics I have seen is Texas Republicans trying to gerrymander districts in a way to under represent minorities and the poor.  The proposal for the redistricting was given to the District Court of DC, which is one of the ways that southern states affected by the Voting Rights Act can get redistricting approved, instead of going the more common route of seeking approval from the Department of Justice.  Republicans considered going through the Department of Justice a waste of time, thinking that the Obama administration would just ax anything proposed, regardless.  The redistricting plans submitted were subsequently denied, with the District Court of DC stating that the new districts were negatively effecting minority representation.

     Another tactic Republicans are trying is to pass voter ID requirements for voting.  The rights of Texans being able to vote without an ID use to be protected by the VotingRights Act, the same act that prevented the gerrymandering.  Yet recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for a weakening of the Act, specifically the part that requires states accused of prior voting discrimination to get Federal approval for any change in the way they hold elections.  This has had the effect of Texas trying to pass a law that would require voters to have a government issued ID before they can vote.  Most people agree that this would have a negative impact on Democrat votes, since it would mainly affect poor, elderly, and working class people, who tend to vote Democrat.

     It will be interesting to see if Texas passes a voter ID law, but even more interesting is what new tactics Republicans will come up with next to reduce the impact of Democrat votes.   Maybe they will even consider coming back toward the center to attract borderline Democrats who are turned off by the extremism currently engulfing our capital.  I wouldn't mind that happening, at all.

Apparently, Pro-Choice equals Big Government

For this assignment I ended up reading a blog entry on Empower Texans.  The blog entry is titled "Sarah Davis’ Misguided View of Government".  I would not recommend this blog for reading and I'll explain why, but first a little about the author, Dustin Matocha.

According to the short bio at the end of the blog, "Dustin Matocha is the Social Media Coordinator for Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility".  Browsing through his other contributions to that site show that Mr. Matocha has strong libertarian view points, though it doesn't say what his political leanings are.  I would say that his intended audience, especially for this specific post, are religious conservatives based off of the content of the post being about abortion and big government.

The post is an attack on Rep. Sarah Davis of Houston.  Rep. Davis is one of only two Texas House Republicans who voted against the recent abortion bill H.B. 2.  Mr. Matocha decides to interpret her stance against the bill as a sign that she is against life and for big government.  He goes about backing up this belief by showing a "partial list of votes cast by Rep. Davis".  This list is a collection of amendments to current bills with an description of what they entailed, by Matocha.  A few of the amendments were apparently so horrid that he decided to bold face them.  I clicked on the links he provided to see if his descriptions of these amendments were as bad as he described them.  What I found curdled my blood, so brace  yourselves, amendments tell you nothing useful about the actual bill!  So I went and looked up a few of the bills in question.

Matocha states that Davis "Favored increasing taxes on small manufacturers at the behest of big business".  The amendment link provided describes some small changes to H.B. 3536. The subject of which is, "Imposing fees on sales of certain tobacco products".  The bill is an attempt to level the playing field in the tobacco market, by imposing a tax on manufacturers who weren't around or a part of the states' tobacco settlement agreement.  So the small manufacturers that Matocha is talking about are small tobacco manufacturers who have an unfair market advantage.  According to the bill, 48 other states already have something similar in place.

Matocha states that Davis "Favored creating unconstitutional requirements on political speech while exempting labor unions from the new rules".  The amendment is in regards to S.B. 346.  This bill would force non-profits who are not defined as political committees to report any political expenditures or contributions made.  It does in fact single out labor unions as being exempt, but does not go into why they are, so I cannot really comment on that.  In essence this is a bill aimed at political finance transparency.

I looked up some more, but I don't want to ramble on.  Needless to say, Mr. Matocha's writing is the same kind of politically inflammatory rhetoric you would expect from someone like Bill O'Reilly.  Not to mention the whole post was just a straw-man for what really bothers him, the fact that a Republican might possibly be pro-choice, or anti-life, depending on what side your on.  I also found a statement given by Davis that of the people in her constituency that called her office, 80 to 85 percent wanted her to vote against the bill.  Personally, I applaud Rep. Davis.

Hey Abbott!!

It's official.  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is going to attempt the fill the vacuum left by Governor Rick Perry's Hair.  Not that I'm surprised by this announcement, nor is anyone else for that matter.  I just finished reading a commentary about Mr. Abbott in the Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker titled, "If You Liked Rick Perry, You'll Love Greg Abbott".  You should read it.  It's entertaining if anything.  

Mr. Whittaker has been writing for The Austin Chronicle since 2006 and has 3,483 articles there as of 4:15PM July 19th.  I couldn’t find a biography on Mr. Whittaker, but I would gather from his writing and the publication that he writes for that he is a Liberal Democrat with a highly secular viewpoint.  The article targets exactly this type of audience by using inflammatory wording such as "extremist", "fundamentalist", and "attack" in regards to AG Abbot's religious fervor while in office.  He doesn’t resort to outright name calling, but it is pretty close.

The goal in this commentary is obviously to paint Greg Abbott as a right-wing religious nut job who he thinks would be a horrible governor.  He does this by going through a list of hot topic issues that the AG has either lead or been a part of.  These topics are clearly picked for his target audience.  In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any topic in his list that would go over well with his readers.  This seems a little unfair to me, as I find it hard to believe that there is not at least one thing that Mr. Abbot has done that his readers would find ok.   But I guess if you’re trying to persuade people to not like someone, you don’t exactly talk about their good points.

Some of the main talking points in the commentary are Abbott’s propensity to sue the federal government, push to integrate religion into government, and his actions against gay rights and abortion.  He does a fairly good job at providing links to his claims, although the links are to other articles within the Austin Chronicle.  It would have been nice if there was at least one outside reference, but I understand trying to keep consumers on the site you work for.  This doesn’t nullify their validity though, as they are all claims that can easily be checked.

I personally agree with a lot of what Mr. Whittaker states, in that it would be nice to have what I believe to be a more level headed leader as governor.  Greg Abbott is way to far to the right for my taste.

Vetoes Abound

Today I read a news article from the Austin American Statesman titled, "Perry issues vetoes of legislation".  This article describes a list of vetoes that Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, vetoed recently.  The list of legislation that was vetoed ranges from a bill that would have limited sugary drinks in schools to legislation that would have required certain non-profit groups to disclose their donors.  Being that I'm a little less conservative than Governor Perry, some of the vetoes that he issued really annoyed me, but I have to say that nearly all of them were right in line with his political standing.  The only one that seemed dubious to me was the funding cut to the budget that was obviously aimed at District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who was recently charged with drunk driving.  I cannot say that I approve of political maneuvering such as that, especially when it is not his money to be playing with.  Considering that the power to veto legislation is one of the most direct powers of being Governor, I feel it is important to know how our Governor of Texas is wielding this power.  It also gives you a pretty good idea of what kind of legislation you might expect to get passed into law.