On Friday, TexBlog PAC endorsed Sherrie Matula (D-Houston), who is running against State Rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake). The endorsement came with a $5,000 check to Matula’s campaign made up of donations made mostly by Netroots activists and blog readers.
Matula’s race represents one of those races that a lot of folks in the “bricks and mortar political establishment” may have underestimated in the early part of this year. However, this district is ripe for a flip. Matula laid the groundwork for this year’s campaign with a respectable general election showing in 2006 and her “Apple Corps” team of volunteers and on-the-ground activists has worked very hard this year to register new voters, identify Democratic voters in the district, and conducting GOTV.
This race, however, is one where the Netroots have consistently seen the potential for defeating incumbent John Davis (a legislator who Texas Monthly appropriately deemed “furniture”) and the value in Matula’s traditional and online campaign operations.
Sherrie Matula is a longtime public school educator and science education consultant who served two terms on the Board of Trustees of Clear Creek Independent School District. She’s served on the board of the Texas State Teachers Association, and has a very impressive resume. She will bring to the Texas House of Representatives a wide array of knowledge and experience, especially on education issues.
Too, Matula is running against arguably one of the most pathetic, ineffective, corrupt, pieces of GOP furniture to hold a seat in the Texas Legislature. State Rep. John Davis is a prime target for progressives this cycle, and the Netroots has long had its eye on him. Why? Here is a small sampling:
Against Schools, Children & Education. John Davis has cast a lot of votes against schools, children, and Education. For starters, he voted for tuition deregulation and then had the audacity to say that 44% increases in college tuition costs are “not unreasonable“. As a result of Davis’ vote (combined with the votes of many other Republicans), it has become very difficult for middle class families to afford to send their kids to college because tuition costs are skyrocketing. Davis voted to slash funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and help create the “permanent wall” that kept kids off CHIP. Of course, after Sherrie Matula held Davis accountable for this vote in 2006, he quickly changed his tune and became “for” CHIP after he was “against” CHIP. Of course, by then it was too late and thousands of Texas children had suffered as a result of his vote. Davis has also voted time and time again against everything from teachers, teacher retirement, childhood immunization programs, and anti-discrimination measures to help school children. John Davis even put the interests of one of his big financial supporters, Houston Home builder Bob Perry, above middle class students who want a college education when it came time to cast votes on the Appropriations Bill on the House floor!
Anti-Environment. For a State Representative that actually has to breathe the air in Houston, Davis is solidly against clean air. He’s time and again voted against improving the air quality in his own district. Here is some of what Davis actually has to say about this topic:
“It’s much cleaner than it was 20-30 years ago. I believe we are on the right track. I don’t want to choke off industry.
You can also watch a YouTube of Davis actually making that statement here.
Pay To Play. Even in the pay-to-play culture of the Texas House’s Republican Caucus, Davis stands out as among the worst offenders in terms of taking money from corporate PACs and lobbyists and then giving them the keys to the legislative candy store. Davis has taken money from Center Point Energy, Reliant Energy, and TXU–all the while never casting a vote to give Texans meaningful relief from out-of-control utility bills.
He took money from a lobbyist for Accenture, and then voted for legislation that allowed Accenture to take over and operate health and human services call centers. It led to the worst social services disaster in Texas history.
Who else has Davis taken money from? Dow Chemical, Blue Cross Blue Shield, AT&T, Cigna, Aetna, Chevron, Marathon, and Merck–just to name a few.
Davis has even taken money from H.B. Zachry construction’s PAC–and voted for bills that promoted the Trans-Texas Corridor.
Via email, the Texas Democratic Party’s chair, Boyd Ritchie, has announced that the first of several hearings on the PrimaCaucus has been set:
I am pleased to inform you the first meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Texas Democratic Party Convention/Caucus System has been scheduled. Headed by Senator Royce West, this first of several meetings will convene at the Austin Community College Health Science Building, Building 9000 in the Multi Purpose Hall room 8500 in Austin, Texas on July 7, 2008 at 10:00am. The campus is located at 3401 Webberville Rd, Austin, Texas 78702.
Hopefully, some Austin-based bloggers will liveblog this. More from the email: → continue reading
Via PoliTex, the right-wing, anti-choice Family Research Council is running a new ad in Dallas, citing that Texas may be a
Pro-life group targeting Texas as “potential swing state” with new ad campaign:
It’s Monday, and that means it is time for yet another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance’s weekly blog round-up. Posts included in the round up are submitted each week by Alliance member blogs. This week’s round-up is compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.
There is a new email scandal in Harris County. XicanoPwr writes about the offensive emails discovered at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office by a local media undercover investigation. One email has Osama bin Laden urging folks to vote Democratic. In another email, a top commander suggested that alligators should be put in the Rio Grande to cut down on illegal immigration.
One side effect of our recent upgrade to the newest version of WordPress is that comments and sidebars are broken when you view a post on its own single post page.
Since we’ve tried in vain to fix this (and can’t seem to be able to), we’re forced to spend today finding yet another template and upgrading CapitolAnnex once again.
We were very pleased with Neoclassical, the base of the theme we were using (with many modifications by us), but sadly, it evidently does not work with the new version of WordPress. So, we’re theme shopping today. We’re going to try and find one that is very similar to what we have now, as we had intended to leave Neoclassical as our theme through the election cycle and, most likely, beyond. We’ll keep you posted. In the interim, if you happen to log on to Capitol Annex and see something crazy going on, just chalk it up to us fiddling with the theme.
In one of the worst opinions ever issued by the Texas Supreme Court, the Court today held that, if you are injured by a church, you are screwed.
The decision will have profound implications for every type of tort case that could be brought against a church, although the six justices in the majority seem to think it only involves cases where the injury was the result of some doctrinal action of the church–in this instance, an exorcism.
“The Second Amendment guarantees our right to bear arms and today, in a decision that was crucially important to Texans and all Americans, the Supreme Court affirmed that right. As a member of Congress, I will work to ensure that the rights of Texas gun owners are never abridged.”
Second, outspoken Second Amendment advocate, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson:
“Today is a great day for every American, a great day for the Constitution and a great day for the Bill of Rights. This decision affirms an inviolate right our Founding Fathers were wise enough to recognize in our Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment protects all other rights enumerated in our Constitution, so this decision strengthens the very Republic itself.”
“In Texas, this decision won’t mean very much because our right to keep and bear arms is already clearly stated in our state Constitution. But cities like New York or states like New Jersey will no longer be able to trample on their citizens’ Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. States and cities with onerous gun restrictions will see those laws challenged and eventually overturned.”
Today Representative Mike Villarreal delivered to the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) a letter from 15 state legislators and a petition from 1,781 Texans (signatures collected through his website, Leaders Listen) calling for a package of transmission lines that maximizes the capacity to carry renewable energy from west Texas to the state’s population centers.
The PUC is preparing to select a Competitive Renewable Energy Zone that will lay the groundwork for renewable energy development in the state for years to come. The letter and the petition urge the PUC to select the most aggressive option, known as Scenario 3.
“Our energy crisis requires a bold response, not half-measures. Texas was a world leader in oil and gas in the 20th Century. The decisions we make now will determine if Texas is a leader in wind and solar energy in the 21st Century,” noted Rep. Villarreal. “The pay off of this investment will be cleaner air, new jobs, and lower long-term energy bills for hard-working families.”
Below is the text of the letter signed by 15 legislators to PUC Commissioners Barry Smitherman, Paul Hudson, and Julie Parsley.
Freshman U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, leads Democratic challenger Rick Noriega in the poll, but the margin is slim and a large number of voters haven’t made up their minds. Cornyn had the support of 38% of the likely voters in the survey, to Noriega’s 36%, with 24% saying they’re not committed to either candidate.
One would think that the Texarkana Gazette, being a fairly decent sized newspaper in North East Texas, would actually do some original reporting –especially when they put a reporter’s byline on a story.
How do we know it is so old, and that it was run verbatim? Because it includes this:
Incumbent Stephen Frost, D-Texarkana, has not yet filed for re-election.
Huh? Filing ended in January. If original reporting was involved, they’d have called Frost’s office or the Texas Secretary of State. Oh, wait! If original reporting was involved, perhaps they would have gone back to their own newspaper and realized that Frost was re-elected without opposition in the Democratic Primary over three months ago! → continue reading
Do you know that you can 
