New Round Up

Go media Go (0.00 / 0)

That thing about Eckhardt is just bizarre.

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The Texas Blue - Advancing Progressive Ideas

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by: Josh Berthume @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 10:25:17 AM CST

About Rudy... (0.00 / 0)

Did ANYONE actually manage to sit through the last season of The West Wing?  It's sad how sometimes amazingly good shows go so horribly awfully astray.

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by: David O. @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 10:32:24 AM CST

Oh Come On (0.00 / 0)

Season 6 was soooooo much better that season 5, at least the campaign part.  Granted, everything that occured in the White House sucked - but the Santos/Vinnick matchup was great.

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by: Joe @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 10:58:39 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Chris Bell feature at The Texas Blue (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for the tip on the new blog Matt.  I missed seeing this one.

I have to hand it to Chris on his piece.  This is exactly right and it's well timed.  This is the Legislative session that we have got to focus on cleaning up the corruption in our Texas political system.  And hold those accountable that try to put roadblocks up on the reform.

Chris Bell at The Texas Blue 12/27/06
No More Pay To Play
During the course of my recent gubernatorial campaign, I introduced multiple ethics reform proposals that I think should be considered in this session of the Texas Legislature. The three that I believe are most pressing and could have the biggest immediate impact are reforms focused on limiting campaign contributions, closing the revolving door that leads immediately from public service to lobbying and strengthening the enforcement capabilities of the Texas Ethics Commission. Other reforms are needed as well but the Legislature must start somewhere and these reforms are the most necessary.

Nothing contributes to Texas's "pay-to-play" culture more than our absurd rules regarding campaign finance. Texas is one of only five states that place no limits on how much individuals or political action committees may contribute to candidates running for state offices. Therefore, you have individuals contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars and, in some cases, millions of dollars, usually in statewide campaigns.

Thank you Chris for opening this discussion!

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by: sonia @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 10:42:09 AM CST

"Campaign Finance Reform" (0.00 / 0)

Do we really want to enter this battle with us relying on a limited number of trial lawyers for the majority of our funding and the Reps having access to an almost limitless pool of business money?  At least now we can compete in races the trials want to play in, if we pass this "reform" good luck EVER funding a viable statewide campaign.

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by: David O. @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 11:32:15 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I think we do want to open that can of worms (0.00 / 0)

What you have now isn't working either, with James Leininger and Bob Perry buying the whole Lege.  Now granted they wasted a lot of their money last election in some districts where they got their asses kicked, but there will always be extremely rich people like them, who want their opinion to count the most.

The proposed reform legislation that has been filed says that no one individual can contribute more than $100,000 in any one election cycle.  How is that going to stop the trial lawyers from giving money?

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by: sonia @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 20:05:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

How? Simple... (0.00 / 0)

Well, it will stop them from giving anything more than a $100k in any one election cycle.

The cost of running statewide/for state house and senate won't change, but the available pool of money will change.  Our pool will be far more shallow than it once was.  In the Republican party the big money donors won't have the same influence on elections (particularly primaries), but their candidates will still have all the money they need (far richer donors!). 

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by: David O. @ Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 21:37:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

small thinking (0.00 / 0)

It's easy to fear the legislation when your frame of thinking is wrong, which it is.

Similar to the passing of McCain-Feingold, everyone in the Democratic chatter-class was all worried that we'd never be able to compete without out big money bankrollers. Then, along came 2004, Dean, the Kerry campaign, online fundraising, the Dean chairmanship, and suddenly you had the Dems raising more hard money than the GOP. And where? Small money. What a concept.

The problem in Texas is that we've not been weened off this system yet on a state level and it's only natural to find a solution that is the easiest, not the best. I guarantee you if caps were passed, the big donors would still give the max amounts but you'd see the candidates and more importantly the party finally cultivate a small donor program that we should have had all along.

There are millions of Democrats in Texas. There is more than enough money currently going out of this state to the likes of Hillary Clinton (who wasn't even running for anything in our state laste year), Obama, and the DC committees.

The "available pool of money is limited" frame is wrong and thus, leaves you with the wrong conclusion. The money is there- it's a matter of changing how you extract it. Right now we do from rich trial lawyers because they are the lowhanging fruit. There is equally as much in hundreds of thousands of partisan Democrats pockets but harder to get because they havn't been convinced to buy the products they are presented with. And right now, I can't blame them.

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by: Karl-Thomas Musselman @ Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 04:43:31 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Thanks for the compliment... (0.00 / 0)

If you disagree with what someone says you say they think "small."  Of course that's meant in a derogatory way...

McCain/Fiengold DESTROYED state parties and killed massively coordinated field programs.  Who do you think that hurt worse, us or them?  You all complain the Texas state party isnt' doing enough and yet DEFEND McCain/Fiengold, the REASON they cannot do enough.  Kinda hypocritical, don't you think? 

I never said we cannot get small donors.  What I said was we won't be able to get ENOUGH in small donations to offset the loss of our big angel investors.  Also, I said Republicans have access to a far deeper pool of money.  For some reason successful business professionals have more cash than a bunch of war protesters who haven't showered in a few weeks... I wonder why.

Rather than accusing you of small or wrong thinking, I'll merely ask this... Ever think strategically?  You know, setting the playing field up to maximize our advantage and minimize their advantage?  LORD knows Republicans do, it seems Dems are too OBSESSED with staying ideologically pure and doing the "right thing" to possibly contemplate what the SMART thing is...

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by: David O. @ Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 13:04:25 PM CST

[ Parent ]

before and after (0.00 / 0)

Yes, because the TDP fell from grace after the passing of the McCain-Feingold bill. Oh wait, it didn't. It had the same strategy before and after and has received more Federal DNC support after it passing than it did before in the Molly Beth Malcom era.

The DNC offset the big donors with small donors. There were enough. This isn't Utah, it's Texas. We have a huge base of raw people and plenty of better off Dems. I don't buy it because the evidence proves the small donors concept as right.

The TDP doesn't have limits and yet it still didn't bother with any coordinated field program for the state. It had a quarter million, the most of any state, transfered from the DNC. I see a whole ladda nadda to support your argument based on a model going out of style, to be honest.

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by: Karl-Thomas Musselman @ Fri Jan 05, 2007 at 13:31:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]