Right Wing Texas Legislators Want To Make Immigration An Issue In 81st Texas Legislature

If you happened to be sitting around wondering just how important it really is to have a Democratic House and Democratic Speaker during the 81st Texas Legislature, consider this:

Conservative Texas legislators made it clear Monday that they’ll again push for strict state laws to crack down on illegal immigration when lawmakers convene in January.

A chief area they’re likely to concentrate on is encouraging local police departments to work with U.S. officials to enforce federal immigration laws, which the House State Affairs Committee is studying.

Believe it or not, we only barely avoided paralyzing the Texas House with a boat-load of anti-immigrant bills last session–everything from denying immigrant children education plus more–thanks to some behind-the-scenes maneuvering and a lack of desire to make the legislative process ten times more contentious than it already was.

Read more

Texas Progresive Alliance Weekly Round-Up, April 21, 2008

It’s Monday, and once again time for another Texas Progressive Alliance Blog Round-Up. This week’s round-up is compiled by The Texas Cloverleaf.

In honor of Income Tax day, Lightseeker at TexasKaos examines the Republican’s tax cut claim here in Texas and discover that what it really amounts to is “tax shifting” and we are the ones getting shafted. Tax Shifting With Bohac’s Assessment Cap as Our Example.

WhosPlayin notes that John McCain has proposed suspending the federal gasoline tax, and points out that McCain would do just as well to try to suspend the law of gravity.

The Texas Cloverleaf is helping to save the earth on Earth Day weekend with helpful tips for saving energy and your wallet, as well as picking up trash with Stonewall Democrats. Don’t mess with Texas!

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme wonders if all Republicans are Tom Craddicks in training. Listen to Nueces County Republican chair Mike Bertuzzi ignore all the ‘Point of Order’ calls at the county convention. Sound familiar?

John Coby of Bay Area Houston has the real press release from Rick Perry about his run for Governor in 2010.

Here are local activist Jose Orta’s Impressions Of T. Don Hutto, Williamson County’s immigrant detention facility, that were posted at Eye On Williamson after his recent visit.

At McBlogger, barfly analyses what’s really important to the American voter in this hour of cultural brouhaha.

Off the Kuff takes an early look at the race for District Attorney in Harris County, which is sure to be one of the hottest local races this year.

Today is San Jacinto Day and PDiddie of Brains and Eggs will be at the commemorative ceremonies taking place at the battlefield near Houston.

BossKitty at BlueBloggin points out that Your $300 - $1,200 Economic Stimulus Payment Cost $767 Million

Hal at Half Empty questions whether one person running for President is actually temperamentally fit to be in that office.

Vince at Capitol Annex thinks it is terrible that Texas teacher salaries are so low that that more than a quarter of all teachers must work a second job to make ends meet.

North Texas Liberal reports on a homophobic journalist’s question to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, and the smackdown she gave in response.

George Nassar at The Texas Blue takes some time out of Friday’s morning news roundup to point out that were the Bush administration to use a logical metric, it would be clear to them that the surge has failed.

More Than Twenty Fice Percent Of Texas Teachers Work Two Jobs

Everyone in Texas knows that teacher pay in Texas has been historically low. Thus, it should come as no surprise that more than 25 percent of all Texas teachers must have a second job to pay their bills and survive–not to mention that 44 percent of teachers are seriously considering another profession, according to a new survey by the Texas State Teacher’s Association, mentioned in the Statesman.

That Texas ranked 32nd among the 50 states in terms of teacher pay in the most recent statistics from the American Federation of Teachers (which is a couple of years old) coupled with the stats from the TSTA study should be a wake-up call for members of the Texas Legislature. Democrats have already taken notice of the problem, and last session, House Democrats took some steps to help rectify this problem last year by passing an historic teacher pay raise.

Of course, not everyone in the House voted for the teacher pay raise when State Rep. Rick Noriega (who is now running for U.S. Senate) worked to amend the General Appropriations Act to have it included:

Read more

Perry Will Seek Third Term As Governor

If you heard the faint remnants of a blood-curdling scream about an hour ago, it was probably the collective fright of the GOP establishment upon hearing that Rick Perry had formally announced that he will seek re-election as governor in 2010.

Read more

Pilgrim’s Pride Immigration Raid Ironies

Surely, I’m not the only person who sees the irony between this, this, and this.

At least, I hope not…

TYC Will Abandon Remote Youth Prisons

It looks like some interesting news came out of yesterday’s hearing on the joint select committee overseeing the Texas Youth Commission:

Read more

CD 7: Skelly Outraises Culberson

Michael Skelley’s campaign to unseat Congressman John Culberson in CD-07 has raised a number of eyebrows lately because he is outpacing the incumbent Republican in terms of fund-raising:

That may be because Skelly and his staff have raised nearly $800,000 during the last quarter. Here is the press release from Team Skelly:

With $796,809 raised in the first full quarter of 2008 and $666,506 cash on hand, the strength of Michael Skelly’s support in his bid for Texas’ 7th Congressional District is clear. Skelly has out raised his opponent, Congressman John Culberson, and is the leading fundraiser among Congressional challengers in the nation. Skelly’s fundraising totals show a better than two-to-one advantage over Culberson.

“I’m energized by the support across the District – not just in terms of financial support, but also in their willingness to knock on doors and to build a grassroots movement,” Skelly said. “We are gaining the support of Democrats, Republicans and independents throughout the 7th Congressional District.”

Of course, Congressman John Culberson whines about all of this:

Read more

Perry Taps Texas Cash For Republican Governor’s Association

Texas Governor Rick Perry is tapping some serious Texas cash for the Republican Governor’s Association. In fact, 25 percent of the $7.1 million the group has raised since January has come from Texas.

Bob Perry, of course, has given a quarter million bucks. Not surprisingly, Trans-Texas Corridor interests have also given big bucks:

Read more

HD 82: What Does The Dingus Opinion Really Say?

[Big hat-tip to Texas Weekly for sending the opinion out to the Election Law listserv.]

After a review of the opinion issued by Judge Walter Smith (of Branch Davidian siege case fame, for those judicial trivia buffs out there), it appears that both Dingus and the Republican Party of Texas are right–partially–in their interpretations of what the court has ordered. The ruling is hardly a “complete victory” for the Republican Party of Texas–and it hardly declares that Dingus may stay on the ballot.

Read more

HD 82: With Dingus Off The Ballot Against Craddick, What’s Next?

Now that Midland City Councilman Bill Dingus has been declared ineligible for the ballot by a federal judge because he failed to resign his city council seat, one must wonder exactly what is next in HD 82.

The Dallas Morning speculates that Dingus could still be made the nominee by the county chairs in HD 82, which get to select the nominee if one is declared ineligible from the ballot.

Clearly, that would require Dingus to resign from the council. I question, however, if once a candidate has been declared ineligible if he can again be eligible in the same cycle.

« Previous Page — Next Page »