Lone Star Report Recent Blog Posts

The Texas Association of Business's BACPAC released its endorsements today for the primary runoff. BACPAC endorsed the following candidates:

Supreme Court, Place 3                    Debra Lehrmann
State Representative, District 47        Paul Workman
State Representative, District 83        Charles Perry
State Representative, District 127      Susan Curling

Also, the Houston Association of Realtors endorsed Dan Huberty in House District 127, and former Texas GOP Chairman Tom Pauken endorsed Workman in HD 47.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit yesterday rejected an attempt by the late William Wayne Justice (a federal district judge at the time of his death) to micromanage the state's bilingual education programs from a federal courthouse. Yesterday, the court reversed a year-old Justice ruling and sent the case back to the lower courts with specific instructions to narrow the scope of the case. The Fifth Circuit's ruling both savings the state hundreds of millions of dollars and preserves state control over education. Click here to read the ruling.

LSR's Managing Editor William Lutz appeared on WFAA's "Inside Texas Politics" yesterday. He blasted the proposed federal health care bill and explained what its $24 billion in unfunded mandates to the state budget could mean for average Texans. (Lutz's commentary starts at about 7:15 into the program, or -8:45 remaining). Inside Texas Poltiics airs every Sunday at 9 a.m. on WFAA-TV, Channel 8, in North Texas.

Attorney General Greg Abbott announced he'll join with other states in mounting a legal challenge to President Barack Obama's health care bill. "The federal health care legislation passed tonight violates the United States Constitution and unconstitutionally infringes upon Texans' individual liberties," said Abbott in a statement issued Sunday evening right after the vote. "To protect all Texans' constitutional rights, preserve the constitutional framework intended by our nation's founders, and defend our state from further infringement by the federal government, the State of Texas and other states will legally challenge the federal health care legislation."

Abbott was just one of many Texas elected officials who blasted the health care bill last night. Texas Conservative Coalition President Wayne Christian announced plans to file legislation prohibiting implementation of the bill by the State of Texas.

Over the weekend, Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) was arrested and told the Statesman he was booked for DWI. This was -- admittedly -- a busy news weekend. The story appeared on the front of Sunday's city-state section below the fold. Click here to read the story. 

In May 2008, Rep. Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock) was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Charges were later dropped. But not until Krusee was the subject of three articles in the Austin American-Statesman, including one published Feb. 1 on politicians refusing breath tests, that the archive shows as appearing on page A1. Former Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) also pled no-contest to DWI in 2001, which later became the subject of his opponent's attack ads in Barrientos's successful 2002 re-election campaign.

Some of our Republican readers may wonder how the coverage afforded to the three incidents compares. So far, the Rodriguez incident has received similar coverage to a similar incident committed by a Republican elected official. Stories also appeared in the Krusee case when he was charged, and the feature piece I mentioned above, but the Rodriguez case has not progressed that far yet. Barrientos got more press than either the Krusee or Rodriguez incidents but that was largely because his opponent ran TV ads showing the video from the police car -- depicting the administration of a field sobriety test to Barrientos.

In the shuffle and commotion caused by the President's socialist takeover of the health care system, other news understandibly is getting less attention. That said, Sunday's Austin American-Statesman has a front-page story questioning campaign donations provided toTexas politicians -- notably Gov. Rick Perry, several members of the Congressional delegation, and Third Court of Appeals Justice Alan Waldrop -- by Triton Financial CEO Kurt Barton, who is now the subject of a federal lawsuit alleging securities fraud. Click here to read the Statesman's story. The Statesman's story says the plaintiff's in the lawsuit may seek recovery of both the political donations and a donation to University of Texas Athletics.

So why are we -- a political publication -- spilling ink over this? After all, the Statesman's story mainly involves campaign donations, not public funds.

Simple. Given the lack of credibility Wall Street has right now, the next big political quagmire in Texas politics may involve one of the state's large investment funds. In 2005, the Legislature passed legislation exempting from public disclosure which private equity investments are made with public funds. (The names of the private equity funds and returns are disclosed but not the specific investments made by the private equity funds.) In addition, several state investment funds have been the subject of careful scrutiny by legislative committees or recently made controversial management decisions. Elected officials should tread very carefully on how state investment funds are managed -- particularly when those decisions affect large camapign donors. The facts in yesterday's Statesman story may not be  a smoking gun, but does provide yet another example of why statewide elected officials would be wise to proceed with caution with this industry.

LSR Managing Editor William Lutz will appear on tomorrow's edition of Inside Texas Politics with Brad Watson. He will be discussing the problems with the unfunded mandates in ObamaCare. Inside Texas Politics airs at 9 am Sunday on Channel 8 WFAA in North Texas.

With a possible showdown vote on the federal health care bill coming as soon as Sunday, state leaders from both parties are rallying the troops. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and Speaker Joe Straus sent a letter to the Texas Congressional Delegation urging members of Congress to vote against President Barack Obama's health care bill and its unfunded mandates to state government. Click here to read the GOP leadership letter. 

Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) has sent a letter to the Texas Congressional delegation endorsing President Barack Obama's health care bill. Coleman's letter is signed by several prominent Texas House Democrats. It argues the unfunded mandate numbers mentioned in the Republican letter are out of date. Click here to read the Democratic letter.

The Texas Medical Association has also issued a statement calling on Texas members of congress to reject the health care bill. "Unlike the American Medical Association, we do not believe that passage of HR 3590 and the accompanying reconciliation bill are steps in the right direction. Our position on health reform remains steadfast: Keep what’s good in the health care system and fix only what’s broken," wrote the TMA's President William Fleming III and President-elect Susan Rudd Bailey. Click here to visit TMA's page on health care reform.

Gov. Rick Perry has called special elections for the vacant Senate seat in District 22 and the vacant House seat in District 100 and set the date for May 8. These are the seats vacated by Sen. Kip Averitt's (R-Waco) resignation and Rep. Terri Hodge's (D-Dallas) resignation after her guilty plea in federal court to a felony charge. The filing deadline is April 7, and early voting runs from April 26 to May 4. All candidates from all parties file on the same ballot for special elections. There are no primaries. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, then Perry will schedule a runoff approximately one month later. The winner of the election serves the unexpired term, which lasts until Jan. 2011. Eric Johnson defeated Hodge in the primary and is unopposed in District 100 for the full term, while new nominees for the Averitt seat full term have not yet been selected.

LSR Managing Editor William Lutz recently published an opinion column in The Washington Examiner discussing this week's primary for governor. My basic point is that in most Republican primaries, it's the social issues that dominate. But this year was different: fiscal conservatives made their voices heard, and Gov. Rick Perry got renominated by appealing to fiscally conservative values. Click here to read the column.

Here is a key excerpt:

Immediately after Gov. Rick Perry's victory in the Texas GOP primary, the press in began trying to discount the Tea Party movement. It had not met the artificially high expectations set for it, neither in the governor's race nor in down-ballot challenges to sitting Republican members of Congress.

But this misses the larger point. After years of playing second fiddle to Texan values voters, fiscal conservatives made their voices heard in Tuesday's Texas Republican primary. Although social issues like abortion, guns, and prayer in school still mattered in this race, taxes and government spending took center stage, up and down the ballot.