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June 26, 2009
Lamar Smith draws Democratic challenger--and another could be in wings
An Austin real estate broker who’s filed paperwork to challenge U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, next year said Friday she needs to raise at least $1 million to mount a competitive bid in the Republican-leaning 21st Congressional District.
The district takes in northeast Bexar and southwest Travis counties and Comal, Kendall, Kerr, Bandera, Real and Blanco counties.
Lainey Melnick, 47, who lives in Westlake, said she decided to take on Smith, initially elected to the House in 1986, partly because “there was nothing statewide or local that I thought would make as big an impact and would be more attainable.”
Smith, 61, didn’t have a Democratic foe last year. He carried 60 percent of the vote against Democrat John Courage in 2006.
He reacted Friday: “The beauty of a democracy is that anyone can run for office. I will continue to work hard to represent my constituents. As a senior member of the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, I will help write laws that make our country safer, reduce government spending and protect taxpayers’ dollars.”
Separately, an Austin businessman who’s been weighing a run for the Democratic nomination for the seat said the race might cost a challenger more than $1 million considering the district takes in two major media markets.
Tejas Vakil, 52, described himself as conservative on economic issues but less so on foreign policy and social issues. He said: “The issue is whether or not I can run a credible campaign.”
Melnick, making her first run for public office, has her campaign kickoff set for 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday at Austin’s Shoreline Grill. Her campaign site is here.
She said Smith tends to vote with his party rather than representing constituents on issues such as education and health care.
She described herself as favoring abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. She said she opposes the death penalty and government vouchers for all students to attend private schools—though she said she’d support vouchers for students with disabilities.
“I need to raise a lot of money,” the mother of four said. “But I have such a great grass-roots following… I am not writing this off as something that’s impossible. If anybody can do it, this is the time to do it.”
Permalink | Comments (41) | Post your comment Categories: Democratic politics, Money, Republican politics, U.S. Congress
February 26, 2009
Texas green energy to grow flush with fed cash
To get a feel of how much the federal stimulus package could affect Texas, consider testimony today from Robert Wood, Director of Local Government Assistance at the state comptroller’ office and Dub Taylor, manager of the State Energy Conservation Office at a House committee meeting on stimulus money.
In any given year, the State Energy Conservation Office gets between $1.8 million and $2.5 million, which pays for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, “green job” training, and the retrofitting of buildings with efficient lighting, air conditioning and heating system.
This year, according to estimates by the two men, the office could get $233.8 million in federal money.
The members of the Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization appeared to want assurance the money would be spent wisely.
“Money corrupts, and this is a whole lot of money,” said state Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Lake Dallas.
“We can use all these dollars,” Wood said.
Taylor said the federal Department of Energy would decide within 120 days - and as soon as a week - how much money Texas gets.
Does the state appropriations process - which will push up against that 120-day scheduled — have to take place before the State Energy Conservation Office can handle that money?
Yes, nodded Taylor.
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February 6, 2009
Smoldering continues over funds' incentive pay
Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said he will continue to press the issue of incentive compensation given to people who invest state funds a day after the committee’s scathing debate over the issue.
Ogden plans to hold a hearing within the next month and call board members who have approved the bonus packages at the state’s pension and endowment funds, including University of Texas Investment Management Company.
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January 12, 2009
Combs ready with revenue estimate
Neither chairman of the Legislature’s budget-drafting committees had a heads up this morning on how well or poorly State Comptroller Susan Combs thinks the state’s revenues will fare over the next two years, though they weren’t fussing about that either.
Combs releases the biennial revenue estimate at a 10:30 a.m. press conference.
Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he intends to advance a zero-growth budget. Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, didn’t have a quarrel with that.
I’ll be Tweeting Combs’ presser at www.twitter.com/gardnerselby ; hope to see you there.
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June 26, 2008
UPDATED: Rep. Driver and others on government working
The heads of two panels that draft the state budget every legislative session weren’t the only legislators to speculate on why state troopers still cluster outside the burnt Governor’s Mansion. I wrote a column on that today.
Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, who helms the House Committee on Law Enforcement, which has oversight of the Department of Public Safety, told me it seems a little bizarre to have more troopers milling at the mansion after the fire than before.
Driver said the broad issue of whether agencies do what they’re supposed to do is hard to sort. “Any time you have something as big as the state of Texas, there’s always a chance that money is not being spent properly,” he said.
Separately, a Democrat-leaning blogger posted a column this week criticizing the state’s Republican leadership for mismanaging government. I fielded this link from the blog’s godfather, Kelly Fero.
UPDATE: Anthony Martinez, an aide to state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, sent a note with this link to a column by the senator.
The question should be: “Does this government work well?”
What can be expected when those elected to lead government run on a platform of dismantling it and drowning it in a tub?
If anything, their government is running just as planned, right on schedule. Like FEMA, it is deliberate incompetence.
Each failure is not a question of whether government works well.
It is a question of whether the current political thinking in Texas works well in government.
To the last question, based on the numerous, consistently egregious failures over the years (from the Texas Youth Commission to the Department of Aging and Disability Services to DPS), the answer appears to be a resounding “no.”
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May 15, 2008
Taibbi's Texas project, Hagee's "apology"
I visited this week with Matt Taibbi, a Rolling Stone contributing editor whose book, “The Great Derangement,” taps research he conducted by posing as a member of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church, whose pastor is John Hagee. Peek at the column here or a book excerpt here.
Hagee, who had no immediate comment on the book when I called, has been under scrutiny lately for what some consider his anti-Catholic remarks as a minister. They’re getting special attention because he’s endorsed U.S. Sen. John McCain for president. This week, Hagee issued a statement interpreted as an apology in media coverage, though the statement I found on the Cornerstone is more an explanatory statement than a mea culpa.
“I am not now, nor have I ever been anti-Catholic,” Hagee says. See his press release here.
While my column focused on Taibbi’s time in Texas, his book presents some pointed commentary on doings in Congress that bear recall.
In one aside, the author describes the drone of an isolationist Tennessee Republican rising to speak on the floor of the U.S. House. Turns out that that Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr., assumed his post on the death of his father, who had been elected a dozen consecutive times. “Three hundred years from now,” Taibbi goes on, “the city of Knoxville’s congressman will be a Duncan opposed to the extension of foreign aid to Pluto.”
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, gets a prime pasting in Taibbi’s recap of an effort by Barton after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans to say the disaster demonstrated an emergency need to lift longtime restrictions on air pollutants from plants built after 1970 as spelled out in the Clean Air Act.
After Barton mis-summarized the measure, Taibbi writes, a Massachusetts Democrat on the committee hearing the matter said that if he’d given a similar summary to his constituents at a Massachusetts gas station, they “wouldn’t leave me in one piece.”
“Well, what I do at a Texas gas station, when people ask if I’m Congressman Barton,” Barton replied, smiling, “is this… I just tell ‘em I’m his driver.” The comment drew laughs all around.
A couple more then-House members get mention: Tom DeLay, then the House majority leader, and Chris Bell, the Houston Democrat who raised ethics questions about DeLay in his lame-duck last months in the House.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Democratic politics, Elections, Journalism, Money, Presidential race, Republican politics, U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate
January 17, 2008
Perry, Bush reuniting at Washington fundraiser
Gov. Rick Perry will be reunited with President Bush at a February fundraiser in Washington. The gala organized by the Republican Governors Association (which Perry chairs this year) might give Perry a chance to publicly elaborate on why Bush has never been a fiscal conservative in Perry’s eyes. Perry aired his view at an Iowa stop in December that was placed on YouTube.com. (See our December account here.)
According to the invitation to the Republican Governors Association’s Feb. 25 “celebration of America’s leaders” — fetchable by clicking here — contributors can get in for as little as $1,000, though folks also have the option of volunteering to raise up to $500,000 for the association.
Mildly intriguing in the wake of Perry’s characterization of Bush in December: It looks as if Perry might not directly introduce Bush, his predecessor as governor, at the dinner. That’s because the dinner chairman is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
Permalink | | Categories: Campaign finance, Comings and goings, Elections, Governor, Money, On a Lighter Note, Presidential race
October 25, 2007
Multi-tasking governor fundraising out of state
Gov. Rick Perry flew to Roanoke, Va. this week after traveling to New York and Washington and Iowa last week, all in the cause of Republican politics and perhaps forging a name for himself beyond the state’s borders.
Perry’s surprise trip to Washington and Iowa accompanied his endorsement of Rudy Giuiliani for president. His subsequent trip to New York last weekend and to Virginia on Thursday enabled him to visit potentially major donors to the Republican Governors Association, according to his office and the association.
Governors in the association are expected to elect Perry its 2008 chairman next month; that gathering is set for Dana Point, California. The group, founded in 1963, made two $500,000 donations to Perry’s campaign last year.
Perry spokesman Robert Black said Thursday: “He’s not doing state business when he’s doing political business,” but keeps abreast of demands and developments requiring attention in Texas.
“Modern technology is a wonderful thing,” Black said. ”When he’s on the road, whether for the Republican Governor’s Association or Rudy Giuliani, he is still in touch with the office back home and knows everything going on. Gov. Perry is pretty good at multi-tasking.”
“The price of being a highly successful conservative governor of a big state is you’re in demand,” Black said.
Black and Chris Schrimpf, communications director for the association, said Perry tells potential donors about the importance of electing Republican governors, stressing changes in Texas law affecting lawsuits, education and transportation, among examples.
Schrimpf said: “He visits donors who believe in the mission of RGA and who are capable of making a very large investment if we can convince them we are a change agent for politics in the United States.”
The association’s mission, posted online, states: “To assist in the election of Republican gubernatorial candidates and the re-election of incumbent Republican governors; to utilize the talent, knowledge, and creativity of the governors to effectively shape public policy issues affecting the states; and to enable Republican governors to express, develop and promote the philosophy of the Republican Party at the state and local levels nationwide.”
Perry chaired a dinner for the association raising a group-record $10.4 million in February and has continued to help with appearances around the country including a trip to Las Vegas earlier this month. Publicly, he vowed to stump for Republicans next year in September remarks to delegates to the state convention of the California Republican Party and, by video, to GOP activists at a Texas presidential straw poll in Fort Worth.
Last weekend, three Perry aides — Black, Perry’s legislative director, Ken Armbrister, and Perry’s deputy director of budget and policy, Nora Belcher —traveled to an RGA retreat in Georgia that Black described as focused on health care. Black said the travel was paid for by the association.
Permalink | | Categories: Governor, Money
October 15, 2007
Watts has more money, but Cornyn outraised him
San Antonio lawyer Mikal Watts (he of the bulging pockets) edged U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in cash on hand through September, though Cornyn tripled the money raised by Watts in the three months starting July 1.
Watts, eyeing his first run for public office, is four months into exploring the Senate race.
According to fundraising reports updated Monday, Watts’ fundraising barely outpaced the Web-centric efforts of state Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, another explorer. But Noriega trails Cornyn and Watts in cash on hand by more than $6 million—potentially the difference between plentiful TV advertising versus almost none and private plane travel versus hoofing it (a slight exaggeration).
Watts ended the quarter with $8.6 million cash on hand. Cornyn, who raised more than $1.7 million in the period, had $6.6 million cash on hand. Noriega reported $510,314 cash on hand.
Noriega and Watts, who could face each other in the Democratic primary in March, each raised more than $500,000 in the three months starting July 1, with Watts collecting $570,374 and Noriega tallying $530,722.
Noriega also loaned his campaign $50,000. Watts, who has a personal fortune to put into the Senate race, added $3.69 million in personal loans to his campaign, increasing the money he has donated or loaned his campaign since June 1 to $7.5 million.
Barbara Radnofsky, the Democrats’ 2006 nominee for the U.S. Senate seat held by Kay Bailey Hutchison, advised against judging the fundraising numbers. She’s not picking sides in a possible Watts-Noriega race, but she said she senses big Democratic gains regardless of fundraising differences.
“Texas is going Democratic; that attitude is going to affect people increasingly in January, February and March,” she said. “It could be there’s a massive Democratic sweep and money is not as important as last election.”
On a related front, Emil Reichstadt of Dallas, a lawyer who announced he was exploring a run for the Democratic Senate nomination last spring, confirmed he’s shifting his sights to a bid for the Texas House seat held by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas. He said party activists encouraged him to make the move to spare the party a U.S. Senate primary runoff.
Permalink | | Categories: Campaign finance, Money, U.S. Senate
October 11, 2007
Two Texans not quite spelling out CHIP deal, but...
If a compromise pops soon in Washington extending the nearly decade-old federal program that helps insure children of the working poor, hints of it might have emerged Thursday — if only because two Texas players on opposite sides spoke gingerly about the prospect.
I do mean gingerly.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas wrote Democrats — perhaps only in politics do people scribble letters anymore — urging a deal. Cornyn might not be in political danger because he voted against a Democratic-steered plan later vetoed by President Bush. But as he seeks re-election next year, he surely doesn’t want to spend political capital explaining why the Children’s Health Insurance Plan stalled on his watch.
Alerted to Cornyn’s let’s-deal letter, the executive director of the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities didn’t say hallelujah or even that it makes sense for Congress to settle the issue.
The center, which advocates funding for programs serving low-income Texans, likes the Democratic-steered plan, which is projected to result in many more children getting insured (at a greater cost) than a Republican alternative. So it might be untimely for the center’s director, Scott McCown, to embrace compromise terms while Democratic attempts to lead a veto override remain pending.
McCown, asked to rate his desire for a compromise if the override try falls short, replied: “It’s a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ question,” his implication being that if resulting legislation falls short of what the Democratic plan proposed, fewer children could end up getting coverage.
“Which of your children do you want to leave uninsured and how many do you want to leave uninsured?” McCown asked. “Well, that is a very difficult question.”
Cornyn’s letter to Democratic Congressional leaders stated, in part: “If you believe that covering low-income children in Texas and across the country, requires more than the 40 percent funding increase that Republicans have introduced, I am more than willing to work with you to find a reasonable, bipartisan solution.”
Neither Cornyn nor McCown specified a compromise figure. Again, such a commitment won’t likely come until later.
“But I hope they would come up with one that’s a substantial increase,” McCown said. The center made a presentation suggesting it would take $13.4 billion in additional spending over five years to spare states from making CHIP cuts.
A Cornyn aide said the Republican senator would support a level ensuring all eligible Texas children got enrolled. Currently, Texas children can sign up if families earn up to twice the federal poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.
Another Cornyn spokesman, Brian Walsh, suggested that McCown & Co. reach out to Democrats in Washington to urge them to “come to the negotiating table which they are currently not willing to do. Next week the House veto override vote is going to fail — so what then? Will they continue to play politics or work to try to get a compromise bill done? That’s the key question right now.”
McCown answered queries during a telephone conference call with Texas reporters. The center organized the gathering after updating its analysis of competing proposals.
Separately Thursday, Mary Katherine Stout of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which advocates smaller government, said that if the override fails, Congress should find a way to encourage privately insuring children.
Just a little more than two months before a presidential election year, and from a state where one in four children is uninsured, I’ll suggest this is a fair moment to hit the not-gonna-happen-at-this-time button. For her part, Stout recently wrote a column making the case.
Permalink | | Categories: Health & human services, Money, U.S. Senate
