Tag Archives: TexWatch 2014

Texas Politics

Davis BLASTS Abbott For Shrouding Dangerous Chemical Locales

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Texas Attorney General Greg Just “Drive Around” Abbott may have ceded some serious ground to State Senator Wendy Davis in the race for Governor, as the Fort Worth Democrat is hitting back against his seedy decision to keep dangerous chemical stockpiles secret from citizens.  Here’s the scoop from Bill Hanna of the Fort Worth Star Telegram…

FORT WORTH — Kicking off a weeklong trip around Texas on Tuesday, state Sen. Wendy Davis continued to attack her GOP opponent in the governor’s race, Attorney General Greg Abbott, for blocking release of information about where hazardous chemicals are stored.

Davis, D-Fort Worth, is criticizing an attorney general’s opinion that says the Texas Department of State Health Services doesn’t have to release information about reports that show where dangerous chemicals are stored statewide.

The public’s right to know where hazardous chemicals are stored has become an issue since the April 17, 2013, explosion that killed 15 people at the fertlizer plant in West.

“Greg Abbott is obviously doing everything he can to try to undo a mess he has made,” Davis said. “But let’s make no mistake about it: What Greg Abbott has ruled is that families do not deserve to know where these dangerous chemicals are stored.”

In a statement released before Davis’ appearance, the Abbott campaign said he was simply applying the law.

“Greg Abbott did not change any law or policy, he applied the Texas Homeland Security Act, which prevents state agencies from releasing information that could be used by terrorists to build bombs or to target certain facilities,” the Abbott campaign said.

Before the ruling, the state health agency released the information regularly. Davis noted that other states, including Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, make the information available.

If she is elected governor, Davis said, she would make the disclosure of dangerous chemicals an emergency legislative item that must be addressed in the first 60 days of the 2015 session.

“The community has a right to know about where these dangerous chemicals are stored,” Davis said. “And for decades, even after the passage of that particular law, Greg Abbott continued to stand for transparency but he has reversed course on that. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the connection between his course reversal.”

Davis was referring to donations of more than $75,000 to Abbot’s campaign from interests connected to Koch Industries.

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, have developed fundraising networks that back Republican candidates and are expected to spend millions to help Republicans reclaim control of the U.S. Senate. Koch Industries has a fertilizer division, Koch Fertilizer LLC.

“Mr. Abbott is not working for you,” Davis said.

Abbott has been under intense criticism as of late, both for the decision, and some unfortunate comments he made when questioned by the media about why Texas don’t deserve to know what dangers are in their neighborhood.  Here’s that piece of the puzzle from the Texas Tribune…

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, under fire for blocking public access to state records documenting the location of dangerous chemicals, said Texans still have a right to find out where the substances are stored — as long as they know which companies to ask.

“You know where they are if you drive around,” Abbott told reporters Tuesday. “You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals or not. You can ask them if they do, and they can tell you, well, we do have chemicals or we don’t have chemicals, and if they do, they tell which ones they have.”

No one knows for sure why Greg Just “Drive Around” Abbott suddenly became so obsessed with the Texas Homeland Security Act that he had to issue a ridiculously narrow ruling and keep millions of Texans in the dark.  But as Rachel Maddow implied last night on her program, the timing of this decision seems all too convenient to a recent meeting between Abbott and Chase Koch, heir apparent to Koch Industries.

Davis is spot on to attack Abbott for such an atrocious ruling.  With chemical and materials industries being such a huge part of the Texas economy, there’s no telling how many millions of people are potentially at risk of an explosion like the one in the town of West.  Reading directly from Greg Just “Drive Around” Abbott’s website, you’d think he shares the belief that all Texans deserve transparency in their government…

An open government is the bedrock of a free society. For decades, Texas has had some of the strongest open government laws in the nation – laws ensure that Texans can know what their government is doing and how their government makes the decisions that affect their lives.

If Abbott in fact believes it, then he better start practicing what he preaches.  Otherwise, that talking point is going to explode all over his hypocritical face.

But when it does, I’ll be happy to drive around with him and search for answers.

(photo credit:  Burnt Orange Report)

 

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/07/08/5956540/davis-attacks-abbott-for-blocking.html#storylink=cpy

 

Texas Politics

Van de Putte Launches First Campaign Video

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If you’re a top ticket candidate for an election, it’s pretty easy to grab the spotlight and make your voice heard on the issues.  For that year, your nomination to run for the state’s highest office gets a lot of focus from the press, and is typically accompanied a healthy dose of funding resources.

But for other party candidates, press access and funding can be much harder to come by.  It takes a skilled political team to run any good election, but especially one where your message is often deferred for coverage at the top.

So far though,  State Senator and Lieutenant Governor candidate Leticia Van de Putte is getting her message out there, in part by getting creative.  Since launching her campaign last year, she has excelled at connecting with Texans via social media, and not only has an active website blog, but very active Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.  Make no mistake… Leticia and her team have been on the leading edge of maximizing new tech for her campaign.

Last weekend, Van de Putte took her fight for Lite Gov. to the next level.  Just before a rousing, fiery speech at last weekend’s Texas Democratic Party Convention, she rolled out the campaign’s first major video, meant as an introduction both for her speech in Dallas, but also to introduce Texas voters to her campaign.  Sufficient to say, it’s not your typical campaign video.  Leticia brings us into her home, and we get to meet her whole family (including a gaggle of grandkids), and join them at an old-fashioned Texas dinner table.  And then there’s this thing with chicken and ‘mama ain’t happy’ and… well, you just have to watch.

This video was a huge success at the Convention, and could very well be a huge success with voters.  The genius here?  It’s not a very political video, but meant to show how much Leticia shares in common with other Texans.  In a few minutes, she’s able to escape the political world, and show all of the hard-working women and moms of Texas that she cares about their issues, and that if elected, they will be the ones with a voice in Austin.  If she can get the word out, this video can advance her candidacy much further.

Watch now, see for yourself, and leave a comment below with your first impressions.

Texas Politics

How ‘The People’s Filibuster’ Changed Texas Politics

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Everyday on this planet, people experience a defining moment in their life… a marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, starting college, a new job… these events are significant to that individual, and the close family and friends around them.  Then there are even rarer occasions where we experience a defining moment as a collective, like the tragedy of 9-11 or Barack Obama’s election in 2008.  Once the moment happens, things as we know them are different.

That defining moment in recent Texas politics was not an election or a tragedy, but was generated from one state legislator taking a stand.  One year ago, State Senator Wendy Davis stood on the floor of the Senate for 11 hours in an epic filibuster against SB 5… a bill to severely limit access to women’s healthcare.  In a pair of pink Mizuno sneakers, she stood and talked while the world watched the dastardly GOP senators did everything they could to take her down.  That in fact is how Davis’ filibuster ended… claiming that she had failed to stand up properly 2 hours short of running out the clock on Texas’ legislative session.  But rather than give up, Texas’ Democratic Senators unleashed a slew of tactics to keep the delay going.  Finally at the end of the night, with 15 minutes left on the clock, one insult to Senator Leticia Van de Putte unleashed a fire from the gallery… Hundreds of women’s rights supporters cheered, and stomped and clapped until the Legislative Session ran out.  Davis’ original Filibuster was completed by the people of Texas.  To the Republican plans to harm women’s rights, the people said NO.

Like typical Texas Republicans, Governor Perry called a Special Session and they passed their heinous bill anyway.  But even as the GOP won a fierce battle, they simultaneously started a war with Texas voters on both sides, flooded Democratic coffers with new money sources, and elevated Senators Davis and Van de Putte to national stardom.  That’s the main way that Texas politics has changed since June 25th, 2013. Democrats now have real press power.  Gone are the days when a Democratic candidate would be wholly ignored by statewide media, or when someone like Rick Perry could laugh off the notion of a general election debate.  Republicans may still control Texas politics, but the sense of Absolute Monarchy has been “Magna-Carted” off to the ol’ dusty trail.  Now, at the very least in Texas, Democrats MUST be heard.

So the question remains… can Democrats use that bully pulpit effectively?  On this front, the results have so far been mixed.  Certainly not an indictment of Top-Tier candidates, but a clear sign that they’re still much newer to the statewide game than their GOP counterparts.  Much to the dismay of her supporters, Davis has run into trouble about how to immortalize this moment’s history herself, running away from the abortion issue almost as fast as her opponent runs from all the legal cases he files and then forgets about in public.  (By the way… whatever happened to the safe, legal and rare argument that BOTH parties used to support? Seems pretty reasonable to me.)

Ultimately, this new position of strength for Democrats must be utilized for one primary directive… turning out voters.  That is more important than anything the Davis or Van de Putte could yell from the rooftops.  Has Texas changed enough to swing some statewide offices blue?  Check the Senate clock… it’s still tickin’.

 

 

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Abbott, Davis Parlay Over Pre-K

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Some very revealing plans for Pre-K came out of the Abbott campaign. Here’s the low-down from the Texas Tribune, including Wendy Davis’ response…

Announcing the first of his education policy proposals Monday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott called for reforming pre-kindergarten programs before expanding access, saying that additional funding should be tied to academic outcomes.

Abbott’s plan, which was unveiled in Weslaco, proposes providing an additional $1,500 per student on top of the funding the state already provides for half-day pre-K programs if the program meets performance requirements set by the state.

“Expanding the population of students served by existing state-funded programs without addressing the quality of existing prekindergarten instruction or how it is being delivered would be an act of negligence and waste,” Abbott’s policy proposal reads.

Abbott’s proposal comes with a $118 million price tag in the 2016-17 biennium and includes a focus on annual reviews for children beginning school in 2016…

On Monday, Davis was quick to respond to Abbott’s call for reforming pre-K instead of expanding access.

“The fact that Greg Abbott thinks it’s a ‘waste’ to ensure all Texas children have access to pre-K explains why he’s still fighting to defend nearly $200 million in cuts to pre-K in the courtroom,” Davis said in a statement. “Abbott’s plan of pre-K for the chosen few but not for all hardworking Texas children would set our state backwards at a time we need to prepare for a 21st-century economy.”

Earlier in the day, Davis also attacked Abbott before he released his proposal, calling his policies hypocritical given his defense of the state in court as part of the school finance lawsuit.

Abbott’s Pre-K “plan” is tailor-made for his mostly Conservative, non-minority audience. He proposes that instead of trying to take care of all Texas children, we should instead shift more resources to programs that are already doing well, and let the struggling children fall further behind.

But unlike years past for Democrats, Wendy Davis is able to offer a competing vision that will get noticed by voters. After massive cuts to public education in 2011, Davis lambastes Abbott for daring to cut some programs even further. She also mentions a landmark lawsuit where Texas schools are suing the state due to severe under-funding from the Legislature’s 2011 education budget slash-fest. One has to agree with Davis in this case…. having our precious Pre-schoolers compete in a Hunger Games battle for their education is not the way to make Texas a better state.

The sheer immediacy of the response to Abbott is impressive, and presents further evidence of a bold shift for the Davis campaign, and even for the Texas Democratic Party. Here’s hoping they can keep the heat on Abbott through November. It’s quite astounding that the Abbott campaign would be bold enough to even mention education platform this early before November. Are they giving Democrats free ammunition here? No matter one’s political stripes, everyone in the state of Texas lived through those ridiculous cuts in 2011, and they know that schools haven’t nearly recovered. As the Attorney General has proven today, a Davis administration would be much better for our kids.

(photo credit: CBS DFW 11)

Houston Politics

TexWatch 2014: Forcing the Issues

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As was stated in an earlier post, Texas Democrats are facing some rather long odds to win statewide in this election cycle. Most of this has to do with the long shadow cast by 2 decades of losses for the statewide party. To put it simply, Texas Democrats have to start our game way downfield from the GOP. Aside from meticulously gerrymandered Congressional and legislative seats, the Democrats will be out-numbered on the ground and out-spent everywhere else. This is the reality of 2014 politics in Texas. The only way for Democrats to catch up is to formulate a true Texas message, force the issues, go on the offensive, and hit the GOP hard.

Since the Primary election, it appears that this message is starting to be heard by the Davis campaign. After a somewhat rocky start, Wendy Davis’ organization has launched an all-out assault on Abbott’s stance over the issue of equal pay for women and minorities.

At a Monday morning rally before a packed and pumped-up crowd of about 160 at Sholz Garten, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis pressed the issue of equal pay for equal work, challenging Attorney General Greg Abbott to, “stop hiding behind your staff members, stop hiding behind your surrogates.”

“This Texas gal is calling you out,” declared the Fort Worth Democrat to huge applause on an issue that has energized her campaign for the governorship since the March 4 primary.

Davis faulted Abbott for successfully fighting a 2011 pay discrimination case in court — albeit one based on race and nationality and not gender — and presiding over an office which, according to a recent report in the San Antonio Express-News, most female assistant attorneys general make less on average than men do in the same job.

This is a good start for Davis, and will hopefully provide an example for Leticia Van de Putte, Steve Brown and other statewide Democrats to follow. Any successful campaign in the Lone Star state has to be about issues that resonate with people. Texas is not New York or Los Angeles. We’re not the same type of stereotypical “Liberals” that you find on the East or West Coast. Nor are we the other major part of the Democratic Party… Union-workers like you’d find in Ohio or Michigan. There’s not a large “Democratic Party” identity here. If anything, most Texans would tell you that they are Conservative just because that is what they know and understand. But if you dig a little deeper, and connect with issues they care about– safe schools, fixing roads and bridges, access to fair wages and upward economic mobility, health care for their families– the wellspring of commonality is revealed. For Democrats, the key winning strategy simply about pealing back the layers to find the areas where most voters agree. Equal pay has gained some traction, but the bigger issues like Healthcare expansion for the poor (via the ACA’s Medicaid expansion or otherwise) are out there waiting to be brought to the light.

Along with forcing specific issues, it’s also time for Democrats to call for general election debates. In 2010, Rick Perry was able to get reelected without ever facing Democratic challenger Bill White on the debate stage. As a result, many voters (especially those in a last-minute rush to get informed before going to the ballot box) probably didn’t have sufficient information to consider Bill White a credible alternative. Debates are not only important for the moment they happen, but in the world of online search, they can also prove to be a critical resource for low-information voters. We can’t afford for the GOP to go under the radar like they did in 2010. Texans deserve to hear both sides of the political spectrum, and they deserve to have that information in a face-to-face debate. It’s one thing to toggle back and forth with the press, but having candidates on the debate stage can literally make or break a campaign. This must be demanded by Democrats, otherwise it’s not going to happen.

Even in the face of disadvantage, it appears to have been a good month for Wendy Davis. As she and other Texas Democrats move into the next stage, it’s imperative that the keep the momentum going, and continue to pressure their Republican counterparts. Democrats are definitely the underdogs in 2014, but they can win as long as they’ve got plenty to bark about.

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TexWatch 2014: Past the Primaries Part 1

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The old saying goes like this…

Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.

Once again, this political principle was on display this week’s Primary election. Republicans, as expected, were out in much greater force than their Democrat counterparts, despite all of the hope and anticipation of positive developments like Battleground Texas. In the first statewide election since BGTX’s founding, Democratic turnout was almost the same for 2014 as it was in 2010… dismal. The GOP side had easily twice the number of voters.

Houston Chronicle’s editorial board seems to agree…

The tea party groups won also in this, their third election cycle, because they are knowledgeable and engaged and they show up. They contest every office.

Are you listening Democrats? Until the state’s hapless minority party emulates the tea partiers, they’ll continue to embarrass themselves with such beyond-the-fringe candidates as Kesha Rogers, a Fort Bend County follower of Lyndon LaRouche who has advocated impeaching President Obama and who carts around a poster of the president with a Hitler mustache. Rogers is a Democrat in name only, but low-information primary voters keep voting for her anyway.

Knowledgeable? Well, TEA-Publicans definitely show up. And they always bring a trove of consistent, even if rarely factual, talking points. And in the state’s current voting environment, it’s enough to wallop the Democratic side.

But the most frustrating part of all of this? Even if Republicans are out-voting Democrats by a 2 to 1 margin, the combined voter turnout is still abysmal. Fewer than 1.9 million people voted in this week’s Primary election… roughly 0.5 percent of the state’s population made these decisions for 26 million Texans. 12 million registered voters were nowhere to be found. Of the supreme oligarchy that does manage to get to the polls, many of them have no clue what or who they’re voting for. There’s no better evidence of this than the fact that a virtual unknown can draw over 114,000 votes just because they have a name of Hispanic origin. Reynaldo “Ray” Madrigal, a Corpus Christi native and Wendy Davis’ only primary opponent, never even campaigned north of I-10.

After this week’s contest, it’s pretty easy to see why Texas Democrats are caught in a cycle of disappointment. They are still a weak party, but all is not lost. Some glimmers of hope (and likely evidence that Battleground Texas is making a difference) include increased voter turnout in urban counties, an improved fundraising apparatus and a literal ARMY of new volunteers. Check back for more insight into how statewide candidates did, and how they can win this November.

Houston Politics

Texoblogosphere: Week of March 3rd

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The Texas Progressive Alliance is delighted to see marriage equality take another big step forward as we bring you this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff examines the past performance of UT/Texas Trib polls in statewide Demorcatic primaries and finds it wanting.

As the Uber rideshare program (and all its politics) come to Houston, George and Horwitz at Texpatriate take different sides on the issue, one in favor, one against.

After a recent visit to the Natural State, Texas Leftist has discovered that Arkansas’ ‘Private Option’ alternative to Medicaid expansion is a rousing success. So successful in fact, it seems only natural that dysfunctional GOP politicians would try to kill it. Are they really willing to kick one hundred thousand people (and counting) off of their health plans?

WCNews at Eye on Williamson reminds us that the Texas GOP holds all the power in Texas and therefore Everything That’s Wrong With Texas Is The Texas GOP’s Fault.

It’s a good thing that Greg Abbott doesn’t comprehend the damage he’s doing to his chances to get elected, observes PDiddie at Brains and Eggs. And as long as Abbott continues not getting it, Ted Nugent is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why Greg Abbott’s campaign publicly endorses Ted Nugent’s views.

Neil at All People Have Value posted about the brave and hopeful man who interrupted arguments at the Supreme Court to speak up in opposition to Citizens United. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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

John Coby has Greg Abbott’s next apology all ready for him.

The Texas Green Report updates us on the Sierra Club’s litigation against industrial polluters.

Offcite looks at your cancer risk in Houston.

The Lunch Tray reports that a growing number of Congressional Republicans are seeking to gut the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

The Inanity of Sanity mocks the latest video smear attempt by James O’Keefe, this time against Battleground Texas.

TFN Insider awaits an apology to teachers from Dan Patrick and David Dewhurst now that their accusations about CSCOPE have proven to be utterly groundless.

Grits explains again why more security cameras do not equal more security.

Happy Electtion Day!! Make sure to go VOTE!!!