Burnt Orange Report
News, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas
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November 30, 2004The Hispanic Vote in Dallas County...By Byron LaMastersIs decisive. One of my Winter Break projects is to crunch the numbers in Dallas County, and figure out how Democrats can strategically use their resources to sweep the county in 2006. Democrats won six of twelve countywide races this year in which there was a Democrat and a Republican on the ballot. According to one study, there was one key difference between the Democrats that won Dallas County, and the Democrats that lost Dallas County -- the Hispanic vote. Via the Dallas Morning News:
Dallas County is extremely winnable for Democrats in years to come. If Democrats can win 40%+ of the White vote, demographics should make it easy to win assuming we turn out our base, and maintain our advantage among Hispanics. Having a Hispanic woman (Lupe Valdez) leading the county ticket in 2004 probably helped in that regard. That Old Time ReligionBy Jim DallasOne of my favorite Internet toys is the NORC's General Social Survey analysis site. Here's an interesting statistic I discovered running the cross-tabulations module:
However....
Ponder that. A pretty strong majority of both hard-core Democrats and hard-core Republicans believe in God, but Republicans by far are a lot more likely to believe in damnation and miracles. What is really odd is that there doesn't seem to be a strong partisan divide over the nature of the Bible; white "Strong Republicans" seem to be slightly more likely to think the Bible is the literal Word of God, but only by about 10 points or so. Not like the big 30 point divide over hell. I don't think that "literalism" or "fundamentalism" are the sine qua non of religious conservatism (which, let us stipulate, is a far more powerful force in the Republican Party); rather, I think, it's rooted in a sort of mysticism. What I'd like to see is a partisan breakdown of belief in faeries and angels. Frost for DNC?By Byron LaMastersHe's making the calls. The AP reports:
As a Democrat who grew up in Dallas, I've always been a fan of Martin Frost. Still, I think that my first choice would be Simon Rosenberg, and while I haven't done much posting on the DNC race, I'll be sure to post more on the DNC race in the next two months. More thoughts from Political State Report and MyDD. Stick, Opiela
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| County | 2002 % | 2004 % |
| All Counties | 53.05 | 45.44 |
| Liberty | 53.46 | 48.32 |
| Montgomery | 39.80 | 35.14 |
| Polk | 57.46 | 46.35 |
Clearly, Ellis had problems districtwide. Ellis lost by about 4400 votes, and his 2004 numbers were down by about 4-5% in both Liberty and Montgomery counties -- and Ellis couldn't afford to drop more than 3% districtwide. But the big problem for Ellis was his drop in his home county of Polk. Why did Ellis drop over 11% in Polk county from 2002 to 2004?
Two words: Trailer Trash. And no, I don't mean that in any derogatory sense. But those two words uttered by Dan Ellis's wife, Bea Ellis is what got Dan Ellis in trouble. Bea Ellis is a member of the Livingston (the county seat of Polk County) School Board and she was interviewed by the Fort Worth Star Telegram in June for an article on a story about multiple incidents of sexual impropriety between educators and students in the Livingston school district:
"Livingston has white trailer trash and an upper middle class and not much in between," said Bea Ellis, vice president of the Livingston school board and the wife of state Rep. Dan Ellis. "So if you can walk the walk and talk the talk, you're good" in students' minds.
Oops. Apparently, within several days t-shirts appeared in Livingston reading "I'm trailer trash and I vote". Instead of apologizing, the Ellis's went on a vacation and did not adequately respond according to people familiar with the race. The quote was the perfect gift for the John Otto campaign, who won because of that Ellis gaffe, and also because, as Andrew noted, Otto worked his butt off. Anyway, that's how this race snuck up on a lot of us Democrats that didn't expect for any Democratic incumbent state representative other than John Mabry to have much of a scare.
Update: Two more reasons for Ellis's loss mentioned in this article straight-ticket GOP voting in a presidential year, and Democrats' efforts to attempt to disallow "escapee" voter registration (see the article for details).
I guess this is part of the reason why they're so big on "professional ethics" these days:
Here's a question I'd like to see someone ask Alberto Gonzales at his confirmation hearing for the post of attorney general:
In October 1996, President Bush, then governor of Texas, was summoned to jury duty in Austin. Gov. Bush boasted to the press that he did not intend to use some "feeble excuse" to avoid jury duty. But when Gov. Bush showed up at the Travis County Courthouse, he was assigned to a drunk-driving case. As the public would learn four years later, the governor had once been busted for drunk driving in Maine.
As Gov. Bush's general counsel, Mr. Gonzales, you moved quickly to persuade the judge in chambers that Gov. Bush, despite his public statements, was ineligible on the grounds that he might later be in a position to pardon the person being tried (even though this is not an offense for which people typically request or receive pardons). In retrospect, it seems pretty clear that the reason for Gov. Bush's change of heart was that you advised him that he was sure to be asked during voir dire whether he'd ever been involved in a drunk-driving incident. The judge accepted your clemency argument, dismissed Gov. Bush from jury duty, and inadvertently kept Gov. Bush's secret safe. Later the defense attorney, David Wahlberg, told Texas Monthly that you "snookered all of us."
When Gov. Bush appeared that day for jury duty, he did not fill out the part of the jury questionnaire that asked him to list any previous convictions. When this was revealed in the press in 2000, Bush's presidential campaign claimed that the form had been filled out by a gubernatorial aide. My question is this: Did you instruct Gov. Bush, or one of his aides, to leave that part of the jury questionnaire form blank? If so, was that consistent with your duties as an employee not of George W. Bush, private citizen, but of the state of Texas?
Once again, Vince over at the Free State Standard gives us some interesting news.
Democrats for the first time in decades actually had a net gain of seats in the Texas House. Craddick of course has his own issues of ethics swirling about him with the off chance of being investigated by Ronny Earle as part of the Delay Money Matters. You wouldn't think that Texas House Democrats would be so eager to pledge their support to him for speaker.
Apparently not. 32 Texas House Democrats have done so. Of course, some are expected because they are rural Democrats or part of his leadership team (Patrick Rose, Vilma Luna, Ron Wilson types (though Wilson was knocked out in the Democratic Primary like the rest of DemoCraddickcrats should next time).
But why are Alma Allen (who defeated DemoCraddickcrat Wilson) and Austin's liberal Dawna Dukes on his list?
Because they think that no one can challenge Craddick for the position. They don't want to even bother trying to align with other Republicans for a different Republican leader. Granted Craddick got every Republican's support, but is nobody putting a feeler out for dissention? And even then, why bother adding your name to his list, if you know you aren't getting anything in return and you don't agree with him? I'm talking to you Rep. Dukes...
Her Statement in the Austin Chronicle...
"Let's be realistic. No one else was going to be elected speaker, and this is about doing what's best for your constituency. This is about being realistic. Craddick is going to be the speaker for the foreseeable future, and this is about doing what's best for my constituency."
Dukes noted that there is a bipartisan House tradition of supporting the presumptive speaker – "everyone pledged with Laney every time" – and that she told Craddick when he requested her pledge that she would still take the same positions on legislation, and that she was promised nothing in return.
Dukes Office - (512) 463-0506
The full list of his 'supporters' is in the extended entry. If someone wants to go through and pull out all 32 Democrats, that would be helpful. I don't have the time at the momment but could bold them all if someone posts a comment with their names in it.
2004 Pledge List
Alma Allen
Ray Allen
Charles"Doc" Anderson
Kevin Bailey
Todd Baxter
Leo Berman
Roy Blake, Jr.
Dwayne Bohac
Dennis Bonnen
Dan Branch
Betty Brown
Fred Brown
Bill Callegari
Scott Campbell
Carter Casteel
Norma Chavez
Warren Chisum
Byron Cook
Robby Cook
Frank Corte
Joe Crabb
Tom Craddick
Myra Crownover
John Davis
Glenda Dawson
Dianne Delisi
Mary Denny
Joe Driver
Dawnna Dukes
Harold Dutton, Jr.
Al Edwards
Craig Eiland
Rob Eissler
Gary Elkins
David Farabee
Ismael "Kino" Flores
Dan Flynn
Dan Gattis
Charlie Geren
Helen Giddings
Veronica Gonzales
Toby Goodman
Tony Goolsby
Bob E. Griggs
Kent Grusendorf
Ryan Guillen
Pat Haggerty
Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton
Peggy Hamric
Rick Hardcastle
Linda Harper-Brown
Will Hartnett
Glenn Hegar
Harvey Hilderbran
Fred Hill
Mark Homer
Ruben Hope
Chuck Hopson
Charlie Howard
Bryan Hughes
Bob Hunter
Suzanna Hupp
Carl Isett
Jim Jackson
Delwin Jones
Elizabeth Jones
Terry Keel
Jim Keffer
Bill Keffer
Phil King
Tracy King
Lois Kolkhorst
Mike Krusee
Edmund Kuempel
Jodie Laubenberg
Vilma Luna
Jerry Madden
Armando Martinez
Brian McCall
Ruth Jones McClendon
Jim McReynolds
Jose Menendez
Tommy Merritt
Sid Miller
Geanie Morrison
Anna Mowery
Joseph "Joe" Nixon
Rene Oliveira
Rob Orr
John Otto
Ken Paxton
Aaron Pena
Larry Phillips
Joe Pickett
Jim Pitts
Robert Puente
Chente Quintanilla
Elvira Reyna
Debbie Riddle
Allan Ritter
Patrick Rose
Gene Seaman
Todd Smith
Wayne Smith
John Smithee
Burt Solomons
David Swinford
Robert Talton
Larry Taylor
Yvonne Toureilles
Vicki Truitt
Sylvester Turner
Carlos Uresti
Corbin Van
Arsdale Mike Villarreal
G.E. "Buddy" West
Martha Wong
Beverly Woolley
William "Bill" Zedler
Thanks to Vince over at the Free State Standard (glad to see you back!) we have news that Geoff Conner, Texas Secretary of State plans to leave his post next month.
Of course, some will remember him from the good old Rick Perry is gay scandal. (he's not as far as we know now) I just wanted to make sure that everyone could bid him a fond farewell.
Perry gets to appoint another one, (his fourth so far) and Vince tells us....Perry will likely appoint North Texas car dealer and Bush/Cheney fund-raiser Roger Williams to the position, though Williams said as late as Friday he hadn't received an actual job offer from the Governor.
Thanks for the good times (and blog traffic) Geoff. You will be missed.
The Dallas Observer seems obsessed with the "L" word, among others... you'll get the idea:
Two months before Election Day, Lupe Valdez, Democratic candidate for Dallas sheriff, was invited by outgoing Sheriff Jim Bowles to meet his staff. Asked by someone why she wanted the job, Valdez replied that she wanted to "shine up" the badge of an office tarnished by turmoil and charges of corruption. Says one longtime deputy: "She said, 'I'm not like anybody in here. I'm the element of change. I'm a lesbian.'"
After Valdez's upset win last week over Republican Danny Chandler--the veteran deputy supported by virtually all deputies--employees of the sheriff's department are bracing themselves for the unknown. "They knew the management style they'd get from Chandler," the deputy says. "They don't know what they'll get from a lesbian."
Deputies are trying to guess how her endorsement by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund will affect policy in a law-enforcement agency that manages jails housing 7,000 inmates. The Victory Fund requires that candidates receiving its financial support be openly homosexual publicly endorse gay civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation and "advocate aggressive public policies and positions" concerning gay and lesbian health.
"The first thing you would assume is that we will begin to hire openly gay deputy sheriffs," the deputy says. While there may already be gay deputies in the department, the anti-gay culture in law enforcement keeps them in the closet. "It's pretty hard for gays to get past our psychological tests," the deputy says. "You used to have to take a polygraph asking if you'd had homosexual relationships." (That question is no longer asked.)
Another big question: Will a lesbian sheriff want to change the inmate classification system? To limit sexual assaults, always a problem in jails, incoming prisoners are housed in cells based on their history and declared sexual orientation. Homosexual inmates aren't put in cells with straight inmates. State prisoners who are shipped here to testify aren't put in tanks with young first-time offenders arrested for shoplifting. Will Valdez declare the classification system discriminatory against gays and lesbians?
Then there's the question of how Valdez will work with the Dallas County Commissioners Court, which oversees the sheriff's budget; three of the four commissioners are conservative Republicans. With Bowles now taking credit for getting "Lupe the Lesbian" elected at the expense of his bitter rival Chandler, the county Republican Party is so mad at Bowles they can't see straight. Or gay.
I'm rather amused over the fact that the media can't seem to stop talking about Lupe Valdez's sexual orientation. However, this article actually brings up some interesting issues especially in regards to hiring and inmate classification decisions. It'll be interesting to see what, if any changes are made.
It's been 24 hours since we last had a real rock station in Houston and life is getting pretty f*ing miserable.
I have a plan: it involves three squirt guns, a jar of hot sauce, and possibly 10 to 20 years in a state correctional facility.
Oh, wait, they already made a movie out of it.
(But don't tell me that taking over KLOL KLTO with taco sauce as our weapon wouldn't be ironic, and, yes, cathartic).
The U.S. dollar has fallen more than 20 percent in value since President Bush took office, hit an all-time low against the Euro this week, and has finance ministers around the globe rather concerned.
The Bush administration response:
The Bush administration hasn't changed its ``strong-dollar policy,'' Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols said today, adding the Treasury doesn't comment on daily ``market fluctuations.''
This is gonna be a long four years...
Texas's candidate may have beaten Massachusetts's candidate for President, but that doesn't stop Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman from rightfully mocking Texas for our uncommonly stupid state board of education:
The Texas Board of Education has now given its educational seal of approval to what may soon be dubbed Red Sex Ed.
The big news is the state's successful demand that textbook publishers change the description of marriage between "two people" to marriage between "a man and a woman." They also ordered that marriage be defined as "a lifelong union between a husband and a wife."
Frankly, I found the "lifelong" description charming considering that the Lone Star State has one of the highest divorce rates in the country. Massachusetts, by the way, has the lowest divorce rate in the country. We are so fond of marriage that we want everyone to do it.
But never mind all that. The real heart of the textbook controversy is whether Texas students should learn about contraception. And the answer is no. Texas has now officially gone to abstinence-only textbooks. The students are learning the ABCs of sex ed without the C. And as Texas, the second-largest book buyer in the country, goes, so may go the nation.
Only one of the four approved books even mentions contraceptives. The altered lessons teach students how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases in many ways — including "getting plenty of rest" — but not by using condoms. One actually suggests using latex gloves to avoid contact with blood but says nothing about using latex . . . you get the idea.
I was also amused by the "lifelong" addition to the definition of marriage in our Texas textbooks. Considering how pathetic heterosexuals (as a whole) in this country are at having their "lifelong unions" last a lifetime, it's particularly ironic. Yet, somehow the threat to marriage lies with gays and lesbians.
Why bother with the U.S. News and World Report rankings. I'll take The Times of London:
The University of Texas is getting some attention from across the pond.
The Times of London has ranked the Austin campus 15th among 200 universities it considers best in the world.
Among U.S. public schools, only the University of California at Berkeley, which came in second, ranked higher. Harvard University topped the list, which was released earlier this month.
By comparison, U.S. News and World Report, widely regarded as the most authoritative assessment in the United States, listed UT as 46th among national universities in its annual ranking released earlier this year. It ranked UT 14th among U.S. public universities.
In the Times' rankings, American institutions occupied seven of the top 10 places, with Oxford and Cambridge universities ranked the highest among schools outside the United States.
UT was the only school in Texas to place in the top 50.
Poor Aggies.
I hadn't realized this before reading Kuff this evening; I've been sick today, and haven't gone through my daily routine of listening to the radio.
Darn you Clear Channel, Darn you to heck!
(Even if Kuff is right about the morning show -- ick -- Dean and Rog on 93.7 are genuinely funny. Can't say that about Walton and Johnson.)
Two things are causing me some distress:
First, "F* The South." In a word... no. The South is part of who I am, and I'd probably rather saw my arm off than concede defeat.
Second - and this is a long-term thing - the apparent complete lack of real pride on the part of a majority of Southern voters. The half of Alabama that voted not to drop segregation from the state constitution.
I was brought up to believe that pride does not mean wallowing in your own inequity, but rather to bring down walls of oppression with the full force of the hammer of righteousness. "We shall overcome, some day."
Take a look at yourself, people.
Even in 2004, a majority of the people in Alabama are racists. Democrats just don't have much appeal to racists in the 21st century. Winning is not worth pandering to people that support segregation. And if we have to sacrifice much of the south for that, it's a principled choice worth making. I think the future Democratic majority will be formed by finding ways to appeal to Hispanics, and in adding the southwest to the Democratic coalition. I'm increasingly convinced that winning the south (at least most of the "southern" states) is hopeless in the near future if our party is to stand for the values that Democrats believe in.
Via Atrios.
Say it ain't so.
Apparently, airing Saving Private Ryan on Veterans Day is controversial in this Jesusland country we live in now.
E! Online reports that Austin is among the targets. Tom Coburn out to be happy. It looks like the American Family Association is behind this FCC fear-mongering. Do they hate our veterans?
Anyway, if you want to complain to Austin's ABC affiliate KVUE, go here. Anyone have their phone number?
Update: All Belo stations decided to not air Saving Private Ryan. Contact your local station here to complain. Here's the KVUE human resources guy listed:
KVUE-TV
Austin, Texas
John McThompson
512-459-6521
jmcthompson@kvue.com
And the Belo people:
Belo Corporate Headquarters
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
Sheila Hartley
214-977-2080
shartley@belo.com
Belo Interactive
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
Julia Wyman
214-977-4000
julia.wyman@belointeractive.com
It's good to see, even if the Republican controlled Dallas County Commissioners Court is threatening to strip much of her budget, people seem to be taking notice of Dallas County's Female, Hispanic, Lesbian, Short, Democratic Sheriff-Elect Lupe Valdez. Everyone I've been speaking to in Dallas say that there's pretty much no doubt that Republicans will cut her budget, though. Regardless, when the issue comes up, I'll be sure to raise some hell. Fortunately, Democrats do have a realistic chance of retaking the Commissioners Court in Dallas County come 2006 (the county judge and county commissioner precinct four will be up in 2006, both controlled by the GOP, but where Democrats won 47% in each race in 2002 - the GOP currently has a 4-1 edge).
I posted on the raise at 2 AM election night, because, well -- it was about the best news anywhere that I could find at the time. Not only did Lupe Valdez win, but three Democratic Judges were elected, including the first Latina judge in Dallas County -- Dennise Garcia, who will take office as soon as she is able as she ran for the unexpired term of a Republican incumbent who passed away earlier this year.
Back to Lupe Valdez, it's good to see her getting national international press. Check it all out if you have the chance:
Washington Post
Salon
New York Times
The Guardian
Also blogged at: Off the Kuff and the Free State Standard.
The Dallas Morning News folks take a stab at it.
I still debate whether Edwards won because he ran a great campaign (he did), or because Arlene Wohlgemuth ran a poor campaign in addition to being easy to paint as an extremist. Methinks its a bit of both.
What Edwards did in McLennan County (Waco) was simply amazing:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 52,078 - 65.72%
John F. Kerry / John Edwards DEM 26,759 - 33.77%
Arlene Wohlgemuth REP 27,694 - 35.22%
Chet Edwards (I) DEM 50,357 - 64.04%
Chet ran 30% ahead of Kerry in the county. My biggest concern is that against a Waco Republican, Chet won't get nearly the margin he needs to win the race (Chet won by 9000 votes with a 23,000 McLennan County margin).
Against a Waco Republican in 2002, Edwards only got 56% of the vote in McLennan County:
Ramsey Farley REP 22,212 43.00%
Chet Edwards DEM 28,876 55.90%
The other key county for Chet Edwards was the place those of us here in Austin love to hate: Brazos County, home of Texas A&M and College Station. Chet didn't have to win there, but he had to break even. And, he did just that:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 37,523 69.23%
John F. Kerry / John Edwards DEM 16,090 29.68%
Arlene Wohlgemuth - REP 25,941 48.91%
Chet Edwards(I) - DEM 26,210 49.42%
Chet ran 20% ahead of Kerry in Brazos County. I think that's even more astonishing than his numbers in McLennan County. He's lived in and represented Waco his entire career, but Brazos County was new to the district. Edwards had never represented Brazos County before, yet managed to win a plurality of the vote there. Very impressive. His campaign team made a smart move by going up on the air in College Station / Bryan the week after the Republican run-off stressing Edwards's military and Aggie creds. It worked.
Chet Edwards's performance in these two counties sealed the deal. Wohlgemuth won her home county and several other small counties, but she simply could not overcome Edwards's McLennan County margin especially without any help from Brazos County.
Anyway, Greg's got a little more.
The Dallas Morning News debates with itself over who deserves credit:
On November 3rd, the paper quoted SMU political scientist Cal Jillson saying this:
"The Democrats are on their way back," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
He predicted two years ago that Dallas County's longtime political underdogs would see some gains in Tuesday's election.
"It's not that their party is well-organized or doing things that improve their chances of winning," Mr. Jillson said. "It's the demographic changes in the county that are helping them win."
Then on Monday, Gromer Jeffers wrote this:
Several weeks ago I wrote a column suggesting that Dallas County Democrats work on their image – including doing something about the dive they used as an office.
The next day their landlord called and told them that if they didn't like their Fair Park-area headquarters, they could get the heck out.
That may have been the way to talk to losers, which Democrats here perennially were.
But after last Tuesday's stunning election results, the Dallas County Democratic Party has earned a little more respect.
Personally, I'm inclined to agree more with Jillson than Jeffers. I think that it was the $4+ Million that Martin Frost spent, along with the excellent work by the campaign teams of Lupe Valdez, the strong local Kerry group among others (not to mention the key reason -- demographic inevitability) that gave Dallas Democrats their first multiple countywide victories in years. I'm not saying that Dallas County Democratic Party didn't do some good work, but I think that Jeffers oversimplifies the situation a great deal (and incorrectly suggests that there is some sort of tension or unease between the DCDP and their landlord). Regardless of who gets credit, Dallas Democrats can be proud of themselves. Of the twelve contested countywide elections with Democrats and Republicans (from President all the way down to County Tax Assessor-Collector, Democrats won six of twelve races in the county. Look for Democrats to win more in two years.
Just got word from a top notch source that Ron Wilson has offered his legal services to Talmadge Heflin in the event of an election contest, pro bono. One Craddick lieutenant sticking up for another, how sweet.
And a lot of you talk about how the Republicans would be stupid to bring this election up in front of the House, that it would screw over their position in the Asian American community, that it would blow up the body and prevent any real legislation from occurring, etc. And you all are right. But the only reason this will be true is because we are bringing attention to this effort and they can't get away with it now. Keep spreading the word, posting on this, getting ready to spring into action the moment a contest is filed. We can ensure justice is done if we keep our eye on the ball.
Thanks for keeping up with all of this guys, it isn't over yet...
Good riddance. If his vicious anti-Semitism, his history of support for terrorism, his torpedoing of the best peace offer ever made in the history of this sad conflict, his bilking of his own people out of billions or his turning of a tragedy into massive political capital for his own self-aggrandizement aren't enough to make you hate him and welcome his recent arrival at the gates of hell, then perhaps learning more about his place in the genocide of 100,000 Lebanese might.
The left has conveniently forgotten this incident in order to propagandize against the self-defense of a democracy- Israel- but it sheds light onto the character of Yasser Arafat.
This excerpt from the Jewish Virtual Library offers a good starting pont.
For Arab residents of south Lebanon, PLO rule was a nightmare. After the PLO was expelled from Jordan by King Hussein in 1970, many of its cadres went to Lebanon. The PLO seized whole areas of the country, where it brutalized the population and usurped Lebanese government authority.
On October 14, 1976, Lebanese Ambassador Edward Ghorra told the UN General Assembly the PLO was bringing ruin upon his country: “Palestinian elements belonging to various splinter organizations resorted to kidnaping Lebanese, and sometimes foreigners, holding them prisoners, questioning them, and even sometimes killing them.”6a
Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, not known for being sympathetic toward Israel, declared after touring south Lebanon and Beirut that the facts "tend to support Israel's claim that the PLO has become permeated by thugs and adventurers."6b
The columnists talked to a doctor whose farm had been taken over without compensation by the PLO, and turned into a military depot. "You ask how do we like the Israelis," he said. "Compared to the hell we have had in Lebanon, the Israelis are brothers." Other Lebanese — Christian and Muslim alike — gave similar accounts.
Countless Lebanese told harrowing tales of rape, mutilation and murders committed by PLO forces. The PLO "killed people and threw their corpses in the courtyards. Some of them were mutilated and their limbs were cut off. We did not go out for fear that we might end up like them," said two Arab women from Sidon. "We did not dare go to the beach, because they molested us, weapons in hand." The women spoke of an incident, which occurred shortly before the Israeli invasion, in which PLO men raped and murdered a woman, dumping her body near a famous statue. A picture of the victim's mangled corpse had been printed in a local newspaper.7
Dr. Khalil Torbey, a distinguished Lebanese surgeon, told an American journalist that he was "frequently called in the middle of the night to attend victims of PLO torture. I treated men whose testicles had been cut off in torture sessions. The victims, more often than not, were...Muslims. I saw men — live men — dragged through the streets by fast-moving cars to which they were tied by their feet."8
New York Times correspondent David Shipler visited Damour, a Christian village near Beirut, which had been occupied by the PLO since 1976, when Palestinians and Lebanese leftists sacked the city and massacred hundreds of its inhabitants. The PLO, Shipler wrote, had turned the town into a military base, "using its churches as strongholds and armories" (New York Times, June 21, 1982).
When the IDF drove the PLO out of Damour in June 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin announced that the town's Christian residents could come home and rebuild. Returning villagers found their former homes littered with spray-painted Palestinian nationalist slogans, Fatah literature and posters of Yasser Arafat. They told Shipler how happy they were that Israel had liberated them.9
So Arafat tortured these people and killed Christians specifically. A piece from Wikipedia notes thus:
In 1981, armed forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) occupied large areas of southern Lebanon. Attacks against Israeli territory increased, as the PLO's armed forces used Lebanon as a base to attack Israel with rockets and artillery. PLO soldiers fought with Lebanese forces; in 1996, the World Lebanese Organization, the World Maronite Union, and multiple human rights groups concerned with the Middle East issued a public declaration accusing the PLO of genocide in Lebanon and stating they were responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Lebanese civilians.
In a short time, Arafat led a brutal dictatorship in Lebanon responsible for the brutal deaths of 100,000 people and the torture of thousands more. The effort was a concerted one to wipe out Lebanese Christians. Arafat thus joins the ranks of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic as an architect of genocide. His passing in a comfortable bed in a Parisian hospital with his family by his side is a slap in the face to those he gunned down, bombed, tortured and otherwise brutally murdered.
In the end, despite the worries about the aftermath of his passing, the only thing that can be said is that he ought to have swung from the end of a rope many many years ago. Bury him with a pig. Burn him and spread his ashes in a distant desert that no one may ever honor him. Let the world remember him as he worked hard to be remembered- as a brutal murderer and betrayer of his own people.
Goodbye Arafat, you won't be missed.
Obviously meant as a parody, but take out the "fucks", "dickheads", "dickwads", "assholes", and this guy makes some good points.
Dave McNeely has his take on the musical chairs for Texas Governor and downballot races in 2006 -- pretty much the convention wisdom for what's going on the Republican side with the Hutchison/Strayhorn/Perry trainwreck looming (and don't leave out Don Evans). But this caught my eye:
Some friends say Hutchison would like to be on a presidential ticket in 2008. Her Senate credentials, her position on the Appropriations Committee, her high seniority and her being a woman from a large state are pluses — particularly if fellow Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee.
But Hutchison reportedly thinks governors, who get to demonstrate and practice executive leadership, have a better shot at the presidency than senators. And her husband ran for governor 26 years ago. It's in the family.
The senator must also decide whether she can raise enough money to run against Perry, particularly if she's prohibited from transferring her Senate money to a gubernatorial campaign. Also she must decide if a brutal race spotlighting her moderate abortion stance would hurt her chancesin a nationwide race.
I think I speak for most every Democrat in this state when I say that I'm salivating at the idea of a Perry / Hutchison primary. Perry calls Hutchison a baby-killer. Hutchison attacks Perry over for just being an overall complete moron... ya know. Good times.
Oh, how I love google bombing...
Click here, or go to Google.com. Type in "Bush Mandate". And yes, you're feeling lucky today :-)
Of course, I have to do my part to ensure it stays number one... Bush mandate.
Via Atrios among others.
This is hilarious:
Sen. Zell Miller, who famously challenged MSNBC host Chris Matthews to a duel during the Republican convention this year, now may have to face New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
Appearing on Don Imus' national radio program on Tuesday, Miller ripped the woman he called "Maureen Loud," calling her a "highbrow hussy from New York." He added that the "red-headed woman at the New York Times" should not mock anyone's religion: "You can see horns just sprouting up through that Technicolor hair."
Asked by the New York Post for a response, Dowd said: "I'm not a highbrow hussy from New York. I'm a highbrow hussy from Washington. Senator, pistols or swords?"
Miller had said: "The more Maureen Loud gets on 'Meet the Press' and writes those columns, the redder these states get. I mean, they don't want some highbrow hussy from New York City explaining to them that they're idiots and telling them that they're stupid."
Yup, and the more liberals / Democrats Zell Miller challenges to a duel the bluer the blue states get.
With all this talk of Republicans gearing up to try and steal HD 149 for Talmadge Heflin on the house floor, one thing immediately entered my mind -- breaking quorum. It would certainly be unlikely, but I can't say it didn't enter my mind. Well, of course, Republicans want to change the rules on that. They talked about doing it last year, but I'd be surprised if they don't take it seriously this year. You know, after stealing the election for Heflin, they'll probably want to re-re-redistrict Chet Edwards out of office (ok, I'll shut up before giving them too many ideas). The Monitor reports that the bill has already been filed:
A Republican state legislator wants to force his Democratic colleagues to remain inside state lines during the next legislative session, in order to avoid boycotts like the ones seen in both the Texas Senate and House last year.
State Rep. Dan Branch, RDallas, filed a resolution on Monday that seeks to change the number of legislators needed to form a quorum from two-thirds to a majority. [...]
If Branch’s resolution survives the session, the issue would be presented to Texas voters in a constitutional amendment election set for Nov. 8, 2005.
From the looks of it, this is a constitutional amendment which would require support of two-thirds of the house to pass -- something tells me it's unlikely that Republicans could find three -- not to mention the needed thirteen Democrats to give them a two-thirds majority. State Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa (D-McAllen) certainly doesn't like the idea:
"It doesn’t make sense — he would need two-thirds to pass it and why in the world would I vote to give up my rights? I don’t think it has any support in the House or the Senate," Hinojosa said.
I do think Republicans will do something to change the quorum rules (or enact punishments for lawmakers who choose to break quorum) that does not require a constitutional amendment. I'm not sure exactly what they can and cannot do regarding rule changes without a constitutional amendment, but I'm sure that I'll find out over the coming months.
One of the seminal movies in Hollywood history is Star Trek IV, the movie where Kirk goes back in time to save the humpback whales.
Why do I say this? Well, it was at that point that it became tremendously obvious that one of the greatest cultural icons of the 60s and 70s, the Star Trek franchise, was spent. Spock had died and been re-born. The original NCC-1701 Enterprise had been destroyed.
And so Star Trek IV is mostly a series of in-jokes, poking fun at Trek's characters, themes, and the general aura the late 1960s (e.g. the jokes about "LDS" and Berkeley). They weren't just beaming up whales, they were jumping the shark.
So to, it seems, with movement conservatism's quest to paint liberalism as degenerate. When you're not sure whether they're serious or joking (apparently, serious), they've already lost. Probably the only people on earth who will find this funny are self-described liberals who are tired of being pigeon-holed.
Hat tip to Pandagon.
So we've heard all of the stuff about recounts and about contesting elections on the floor of the House, and some of you seem to have found a way to convince yourselves that the GOP won't steal this thing right out from underneath us.
Let me make it really clear- these guys will stop at nothing to win. They broke the law, twisted arms, threw out the rules and just generally ignored every convention of ethics, law, decency and duty in 2003 to ram gerrymandered maps, huge protections for negligent corporations and deep cuts in vital programs down the throats of Texas families.
Now, for those of you who think that Heflin will settle for a recount and then quietly slip into a lucrative lobbying career, check this out from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Because of the narrow margin, Heflin and his attorney were still considering late Tuesday whether to ask for a recount, and perhaps for the 150-member, Republican-dominated House to review the balloting to make sure that the election was carried out legally. The deadline for requesting a recount is Nov. 20.
"We are vigorously pursuing all of our options," said Andy Taylor, a former Texas assistant attorney general who specializes in election law. "We have not yet made a decision as to whether we will, in fact, seek a recount. But we are gathering information to make a fully informed decision."
Taylor said that observers hired by the Heflin campaign to watch the final vote counting Sunday and Monday questioned whether some legally cast ballots were discarded and whether illegally cast ballots had been counted.
Taylor said Heflin has not ruled out asking the full House to nullify the election results, which would force Gov. Rick Perry to order a second election early next year.
Alright, we all know that the FWST is actually mistaken about the results of an election contest. They can force Perry to call new elections, or they could pick either Vo or Heflin the winner. Harold Cook did some research for us down at the party and found that in the 3 cases where elections have been contested, two were given to the Republican candidate (by a Democratic-controlled panel), and one time new elections were called. If Craddick wants to, he can appoint 6 hardcore Right wing, corrupt-ass Republicans and Sylvester Turner to a panel that will then appoint Heflin to his old seat.
But to do that, Heflin's people have to find evidence of fraud and prove it up. Now Taylor has found "questions" about the vote count. Interestingly enough, neither the dozen Republican observers of the count nor the huge media presence during the count felt the need to raise a stink about this while the count was going on (controlled, by the way, by Republican election officials). Essentially, Taylor is suggesting that Republican election officials allowed their poll workers to illegally discard Republican votes while a dozen Republican observers and a prominent Republican attorney and several reporters were stannding right over them- it doesn't pass the smell test.
But Taylor is suggesting just such a fabrication. If they were discarded or if illegal votes were a part of the original count then a recount wouldn't solve his problem. Only an election contest would. Taylor has no other recourse and no other reason for suggesting such a preposterous scenario. It is becoming increasingly clear that the GOP simply won't give up this seat- voters be damned.
Taylor's fantasy makes it very clear that an election contest is not only possible, but highly likely. And with the corrupt, intensely partisan, Right wing leadership of the Texas House (who, remember, ordered Taylor "don't come back without Heflin"), you can bet that the panel will be rigged to give the seat back to Heflin. We need to keep the public aware of this because an election is about to be stolen on live television, right under our very noses.
Keep spreading the word and get ready for unholy hell to break loose on the floor of the House.
It looks like a fellow Texan may take up where (soon to be) former Attorney General John Ashcroft left off. The Washington Post reported today that Alberto R. Gonzales, White House Counsel and one time Texas Supreme Court Justice may take over at the Justice Department if he is able to make it through the Senate:
President Bush has chosen White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales to be attorney general, succeeding John D. Ashcroft, administration sources said.
Because of Gonzales's close relationship to the president, his selection would give Bush tight control over the Justice Department. As governor of Texas, Bush put Gonzales on the state Supreme Court, and Gonzales had been mentioned by White House advisers as a possible candidate for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
If his nomination is approved by the Senate, Gonzales, 49, would be the first Hispanic attorney general.
As White House counsel, Gonzales has served as the president's top legal adviser. His involvement with controversial administration policies on terrorism detainees could be an issue as the Senate considers his nomination to replace Ashcroft, whose anti-terrorism policies made him the focus of a fierce national debate over civil liberties.
Though I could be wrong on this one, I’m of the philosophy that anyone is better than John Ashcroft. Assuming Gonzales is approved, I am interested to see how he handles controversial issues like Guantanamo detainees and the Patriot Act. While he will probably follow in Ashcroft’s footsteps, there is a chance that he may loosen things up a bit. Who knows, if we’re really lucky maybe he’ll take the curtain off the semi nude statues in the main hall of the justice department…
From their editorial today:
Vo embodies Houston's open and constantly changing society. A native of Vietnam, Vo gained his education in Houston and made the most of his business opportunities. Vo's grass-roots campaign imparts the lesson that in evolving suburban districts, Republicans cannot take victory for granted.
Heflin's supporters say he has not decided whether to ask for a recount. A recount holds little promise. The electronic voting machines and hand canvassing of absentee and provisional ballots are under the purview of Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, a Republican whose office is a stranger to scandal.
Heflin could also protest the election in the Republican-dominated Texas House. The House could either seat Vo or order a new election.
Heflin has another alternative; he could graciously concede. Last week Sen. John Kerry provided an excellent example of how it is done.
Update: Another interesting read on the race from the Houston Chronicle: Heflin: an inept thief:
If I'm Talmadge Heflin, I'm wondering what this country is coming to.
ADVERTISEMENT
If you can't buy an election with the lobby's money, you ought to be able to steal it with the help of courthouse friends.That's one of the problems with being a Republican.
They haven't learned how to steal elections — at least not west of Florida.
[...]
Heflin has predictably turned to a lawyer for help.
And not just any lawyer. Andy Taylor represents the Texas Association of Businesses, which touched off a controversy that has resulted in indictments when it boasted of electing the current Republican majority in the Legislature.
Taylor also was hired by the Texas attorney general to represent the state of Texas defending its redistricting schemes. His firm charged $735,398 for the work, billing Taylor's time at $400 an hour.
Now Taylor is talking about asking the state House of Representatives to overturn Vo's victory and seat Heflin.
I don't think it will happen because in the wake of the bitterness of mid-decade redistricting, Republican leaders won't poison the air by engaging in another naked power grab.
Unless Tom DeLay tells them to.
I appealed a University of Houston parking ticket today. I was pretty worried that I didn't have enough points to make, and not enough evidence (one of my key points rested on a misunderstanding between myself and an RA, and so I was hoping to get a letter from him explaining our discussion to the Student Traffic Court). Sure I had photographs and had researched several Texas statutes*, but this was surely no way to run an appeal.
I showed up and started going down the points on my legal pad, sweating.
About two minutes into it, they just sort of looked at me funny and asked me to tell them why I should "get out of" the ticket.
So I did a quickie rendition of my arguments, and I was dismissed. A few minutes later they called me back in to tell me they had found me "guilty", but that I would get out of the fee.
I swear they were reading from a script. Is this what they tell everybody who makes a case?
Well, probably, but I learned an important lesson: University parking tickets really have nothing to do with abstract principles of justice.
* For those interested, I cited Subchapter E of the Chapter 51 of the Texas Education Code, as well as Chapter 12 of the Penal Code and Chapter 14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. All of which are relevant to school parking tickets. Maybe you should consider looking them up the next time you get ticketed...?
Atrios joins the "bash Adam Yoshida" bandwagon.
What Atrios doesn't tell you, is that although he lost the school board race, he did manage to become President of the American Government Simulation, and amazingly we've only "bombed" one country so far (Iran).
No shocker really. Texas is "mean" to children, gay and lesbians, students, the unemployed, the uninsured, the poor and the working class -- why would the homeless be any exception?
The Dallas Morning News reports:
Texas is the fourth "meanest" state in the nation and Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are among the 20 "meanest" cities in how they treat their homeless, according to a national survey released Tuesday.
Angelita Alvarez prepares to sleep on the sidewalk outside the Day Resource Center on Tuesday evening. The National Coalition for the Homeless examined ordinances and activities in 179 communities nationwide that the advocacy group said criminalized homelessness rather than addressed its causes or eased its conditions.
[...]
Dallas, ranked 15th among "meanest" cities, made it on the list for the first time because of ordinances banning panhandling, sleeping in public, obstructing sidewalks and loitering or loafing in public places. Rankings also were based on homeless people's experiences and input from local activists.
Donald Whitehead, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based group, said the survey focused on criminalization of the homeless because "all it does is exacerbate the person's condition. It does nothing to address homelessness. If a person gets ticketed, if a person gets jailed at the end of the day, they're still homeless."
The group's report criticized Dallas for pressuring volunteer groups earlier this year to stop feeding homeless people in a parking lot across from the public library and instead use the small, city-run Day Resource Center.
Then, when about 225 people began sleeping outside the center at night, Dallas police conducted pre-dawn raids and made arrests. Two weeks ago, two homeless people were killed when a truck driver accidentally plowed into their group outside the center.
Share your thoughts on the homeless in Dallas
"It's ridiculous. We're not bothering anybody," Kellie Hecht, a 48-year-old woman who fled her home in August because of domestic violence and now sleeps outside the center, said of the frequent police raids.[...]
The coalition ranked Austin 10th on its mean city list in part because of a campaign to discourage people from giving spare change to panhandlers. It said the capital city did not offer sufficient services for its homeless, so there was little alternative to begging.
San Antonio was 17th on the list, partly because of police ticketing for loitering and panhandling and proposed crackdowns on urban camping.
Nothin' like a little southern hospitality...
Update: The full release on the study by the National Coalition for the Homeless is available here.
With the official canvass showing Democrat Hubert Vo defeating State Rep. Talmadge Heflin by 31 votes, there's lots of speculation on Heflin's next move. I don't think anyone would question his motives if he asked for a recount -- I certainly won't. Heflin deserves the opportunity of a recount, just as Kelly White -- who lost here in Austin to Todd Baxter by under 200 votes and has requested for, and will fund a recount. If a recount gives Heflin a victory, however, I'll certainly suspect Republican shenanigans considering the actions taken by GOP officials last week. The second option is a bit more complicated. Heflin can contest the election -- which would allow the GOP controlled state house to decide the outcome. Interestingly, though, ten years ago, a Democratic controlled house seated none other than Republican Arlene Wohlgemuth over Democrat Bernard Erickson in the most recent contested election. The Waco Tribune Herald reports (Via Kuff):
Wohlgemuth did run, and won, but Erickson went down only after a ferocious fight. Following a ballot count that found just 118 votes separating the two, Erickson called for a recount. After Wohlgemuth came out ahead again, he called for an election contest, which put the case before a 9-member special state House committee in what was then a Democrat-dominated chamber.
"I think Bernard thought that if he could get it back down there in the hands of his Democratic cronies that they'd hand him the election back," Wohlgemuth said. "And it didn't work that way."
The process cost Wohlgemuth $142,000 in legal bills after she'd spent $82,000 on the election, and Erickson took depositions from more than 250 people in his attempt at re-election.
The situation also placed Wohlgemuth in an odd position of being a voting member of the Legislature without full acknowledgment of her lawmaker status. For much of the session, a paper nameplate sat where an engraved metal plate should have been during committee meetings. And "District 58" was written on her committee assignment instead of her name.
Erickson did not concede the election until March 1995, almost midway through the legislative season.
Sounds like a mess. As nice as it would have been to avoid Arlene Wohlgemuth's extreme brand of wingnuttery in the state house, I really don't wish thousands of dollars in legal bills and having to wait for months to be certain of your victory on anyone. There's just got to be a better way to do this.
Back to that decision, a reader sent me a copy of the decision by the nine-member panel written by former Democratic State Rep. Rob Junell. I've put it in the extended entry:
By Junell H.R. No. 285 74R6378 GGS-D R E S O L U T I O N 1-1 WHEREAS, Proceedings were initiated by Bernard Erickson to 1-2 contest the election of Arlene Wohlgemuth to the office of state 1-3 representative, District 58; and 1-4 WHEREAS, Pursuant to Chapter 241, Election Code, Speaker 1-5 James E. "Pete" Laney appointed a master of discovery for the 1-6 election contest on December 21, 1994, and a Select Committee on 1-7 Election Contest on December 21, 1994, to begin consideration of 1-8 the contest; and 1-9 WHEREAS, Pursuant to Chapter 241, Election Code, Speaker 1-10 James E. "Pete" Laney appointed a master of discovery and a Select 1-11 Committee on Election Contest on January 11, 1995, to continue 1-12 consideration of the contest; and 1-13 WHEREAS, On February 14, 1995, after a public hearing the 1-14 committee found by a vote of 9 to 0 that in the matter of the 1-15 election contest for District 58 the contestant did not by clear 1-16 and convincing evidence establish that the outcome of the contested 1-17 election, as shown by the final canvass, was not the true outcome 1-18 because of any ground prescribed by Chapter 221, Election Code; and 1-19 WHEREAS, On February 27, 1995, pursuant to Section 241.017, 1-20 Election Code, a written statement of withdrawal signed by the 1-21 contestant was filed with the chairman of the committee and the 1-22 speaker of the house of representatives; now, therefore, be it 1-23 RESOLVED, That the contestant's statement of withdrawal of 1-24 the election contest be read into the journal, as required by law; 2-1 and, be it further 2-2 RESOLVED, That the Select Committee on Election Contest and 2-3 the master of discovery appointed to assist the committee be 2-4 discharged and that the committee need not make further report to 2-5 this house; and, be it further 2-6 RESOLVED, That pursuant to Section 241.025, Election Code, 2-7 each party to the election contest bear the party's own costs, and 2-8 that this house bear the costs of the proceedings of the master of 2-9 discovery and the committee, and that the contestant's security for 2-10 costs be returned to the contestant; and, be it further 2-11 RESOLVED, That Arlene Wohlgemuth be continued in office as a 2-12 member of the house of representatives for District 58, 74th 2-13 Legislature.
On Thursday, time will run out to vote to bring more grassroots training and nationally recognized speakers to Texas in June, 2005.
Texas is competing with California and Virginia for the chance to host Democracy Fest 2005, a gathering of progressives from around the country. We have big plans, but we need your vote to win—and this time it doesn’t matter that you temporarily live in a red state!
Please go to myvoteismyvoice.com and look at the proposals. Unless you really want to go to California or Virginia if we don’t win, we ask that you vote “Texas, No Second Choice.” After you’ve voted, please forward the link to your friends and ask for their help.
Thanks for your support!
Your DFT Steering Committee —
Marla Camp, Glen Maxey, Teri Sperry, and Fran Vincent
Nails it, as usual:
Last week, Bush became the first Republican president to be re-elected with House and Senate majorities since 1924. What do you think?
Beverly Banks, Systems Analyst
"So they still control the House, Senate, and Oval Office? Well, at least we still have the smug, condescending attitude that cost us the election in the first place."
Edgar Mendez, Data Keyer
"Our nation may be bitterly divided, but at least our government can agree on being ultra-conservative."
Sam Howell, Credit Checker
"What's so bad about this? Could some Democrat explain it to me in under an hour, without starting to scream or cry?"
Ted Jacobs, Dentist
"Now that the Republicans run Congress, the White House, and soon the Supreme Court, they'll just have to invent some new branches of government to dominate, as well."
Leo Watts, Custom Tailor
"The fact that 48 percent of Americans voted for a boring placeholder like John Kerry is actually a really good sign for the Left."
Erika Williamson, Interior Designer
"Hold on. I'm being text-messaged orders from my Republican congressman on how to proceed next. Put clothes in dryer? Yes, Rep. Burchardt."
Too bad that sentence doesn't suggest scandal, simply that they will soon be replaced by other right wing lunatics.
AP Story here.
As for replacements...
One name being mentioned for Evans' job at Commerce is Mercer Reynolds, national finance chairman for the Bush campaign, who raised more than $260 million to get him re-elected.
Speculation about a successor to Ashcroft has centered on his former deputy, Larry Thompson, who recently took a job as general counsel at PepsiCo. If appointed, Thompson would be the nation's first black attorney general. Others prominently mentioned include Bush's 2004 campaign chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales.
I'm surprised Rudy Giuliani's name didn't make the AG speculation list. And Evans' departure makes me wonder if he has designs on the Texas Governor's race in 2006. He shot rumors to that effect down a few months ago, but the suggestion was he'd stay in the Bush Administration, which doesn't seem to be the case.
Still, the new cabinet is forming. I'm interested to see who the new foriegn policy team will be. Some had Dick Lugar's name running around for Sec. State, which I would endorse. And (I know you all will hate me for this one) I'd like to see Paul Wolfowitz Sec. of Defense. A more active Secretary of State and a smart, tough, creative Secretary of Defense would be much better than the pansy we have in the former and the easily distracted tough guy we have in the latter.
This is probably the most useful strategy memo I've read in a while.
I almost feel guilty for not paying much attention to the state legislative races this year.
I might have to reconsider this "year without politics thing," too, sense the more I think about it, the more I am convinced chipping down the Republican margin in the state legislature - and eventually retaking back one or both of the chambers - is probably the most important thing that we can do for our state.
For what it's worth:
Texas high school students will learn that getting plenty of rest will help protect them from contracting sexually transmitted diseases. But their new health textbooks — with one exception — won't give them information about condoms that really do protect them from HIV-AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases. [...]
The textbooks are written as if Texas' teens aren't having sex. The state's high teenage pregnancy rate should dispel that myth. Teenagers are having sex, and their books should tell them how to protect themselves from dangerous diseases, such as AIDS, as well as from pregnancies.
But this isn't really about the well-being of Texas high school students. It's about values espoused by a majority on the education board. And it's about their determination to impose those values on all Texas students and their families. [...]
Allowing values to trump facts undermines education. In the case of health textbooks, the damage can prove fatal if students believe they can take a nap to prevent AIDS.
It's really quite simple. The Texas State Board of Education's decisions are nothing more than pro-abortion, pro-unwanted pregnancy, pro-STD and pro-HIV/AIDS policies. I guess that's what their morals dictate, and that's a travesty for our state.
Check out my post from yesterday for more background.
Update: Amblongus has some thoughts on the matter as well.
Byron was not entirely accurate in saying that the Battle of the Books is a Texas phenomenon.
There is a court fight in Georgia right now over stickers placed in high school science text books warning that "is 'a theory, not a fact' that should be 'studied carefully and critically considered.'"
I think the clear that even though the disclaimer is facially neutral, it has a thinly-veiled religious intent, and would be an unconstitutional infringement on religious freedom.
If you want to put a disclaimer on science, then put a disclaimer on the whole thing -- not on the bits and pieces you don't like. Inviting special skepticism for evolution (I doubt their putting stickers on physics books about, say, quantum mechanics) is not justified by scientific certainty alone.
Thus the legal outcome should be for plaintiff. Chalk another one for the ACLU.
But as a matter of policy, it is probably not inappropriate to encourage classroom discussion on this matter, if simply because one of the goals of education (of which science education is only one part) is to instill civic and moral virtue in the youth of America. I'd suggest that the sticker be re-worded as such:
"Evolution, as fact, and natural selection, as theory, are generally supported by the scientific community but criticized by some scientists and many non-scientists, often on religious grounds. Students should discuss the methods and philosophy of modern science, and express their opinions about the role and ethics of science in society."
As you certainly saw below, Hubert Vo has been confirmed as the winner of the District 149 race for Texas House of Representatives. This victory comes after a very public rebuke of the Republican election supervisor by the Republican Secretary of State, intense scrutiny by the media and about a dozen election observers from each party. In the end, there is no question who won- Hubert Vo, by 31 votes.
But the story doesn't end there. There are two options available to Heflin now. One is a recount (what just finished was simply the count of provisional and absentee ballots), which would almost certainly simply reinforce the fact that Heflin lost. The public would begin to weary of the sore loser and Heflin would not only lose, but look bad doing so.
The second is far more likely and far more worrisome. Provisions in state law allow Heflin to file a complaint in the House, claiming that there was fraud in the election. Tom Craddick- who, as we all know, is a Tom DeLay hatchet man and subject of ongoing corruption investigations- would appoint a panel of legislators with all the powers of a traditional court- subpoenas, swearing people in, evidentary hearings, etc.- to investigate the claims of fraud. After the hearings, the panel needs only a simple majority to do one of 3 things- seat Heflin, seat Vo or call for new elections. There is no rule saying there has to be any partisan balance on the panel, so concievably Craddick could appoint Joe Nixon, Ray Allen, Joe Crabb and Bob Talton to the panel to decide the fate of their right wing buddy, Talmadge.
This is not an unlikely proposition- Craddick told Andy Taylor, the Tom DeLay attorney who was the champion of redistricting "don't come back without Heflin." They tried to steal this bad boy once, there isn't any reason they won't try again. That is, unless we keep the heat on them and make sure they are under a very public spotlight.
Get ready to write letters to the editor, call in to radio shows and post on your blogs about this situation. Start talking about the possibility of the election being stolen and point out that under all the scrutiny in the world the vote came out for Vo. And keep Heflin honest. Give him a call and let him know that Texans don't like sore losers.
TALMADGE HEFLIN -- 281-530-1110 Campaign office
campaign@talmadgeheflin.com
The count is completed and House District 149 has a new state representative: Hubert Vo. It's now official pending a Heflin recount:
With the last votes finally counted late Monday, Democratic newcomer Hubert Vo nudged Republican incumbent Talmadge Heflin out of the Texas House of Representatives seat he has held for 22 years by a 31-vote margin.
According to the official canvass, Vo garnered 20,693 votes, compared with 20,662 for Heflin.
For those not familiar with Texas politics, State Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) has a Rick-Santorumesque obsession with gay people - (read this for some amusing background by Molly Ivins). So, it took him less than a day to file an amendment proposal to ban gay marriage:
Calling it a biblical issue, a state lawmaker on Monday proposed an amendment to the Texas Constitution that would ban the state from recognizing gay marriage.
Rep. Warren Chisum said he hoped the amendment would send a message to Congress that Texans support a similar amendment on the federal level.
"We really feel very strong about the fact that we don't want the deterioration of the institution of marriage and that's what we see happening across this country," he said.
I expect the amendment to pass here in Texas, but I may surprise some people here in saying that I'm glad it's an issue. During the election, I didn't particularly emphasize the issue, as I feared that the more the issue came up, the more President Bush and Republicans would use the issue (as they did) to scare evangelicals into turning out and voting Republican. Now, however, the election is over, but the culture war is not. This amendment gives the gay and lesbian community the opportunity to show that yes, gays and lesbians have families, too. And no, gays and lesbians desire to have loving and committed relationships has zero impact on anyone else's marriage.
I disagree with Andrew a little bit on how to handle the values issue. Andew wrote that he thinks we can turn abortion / gay issues into a debate about education and the economy. I think that's probably a liberal fantasy that fails to understand the moral attachment of social conservatives to those issues. Instead, Democrats ought to take controversial social issues head on. We can be anti-abortion while still being pro-choice. We can be pro-family without being anti-gay. How?
On the abortion issue, I would love for Democrats in local city councils, school boards or state legislatures to experiment a little bit. They don't call state legislatures the laboratories for reform for nothing. Democrats ought to devise programs that include comprehensive sex education in schools, coupled with fully funded health care programs for children and adolescents. Put the plan in place, fund it, and see what happens. See if rates of unwanted pregnancies and abortions decrease, and then put it up against the Republican record of doing little to nothing in addressing those problems.
On gay and lesbian issues, Democrats can be pro-family and pro-gay. It's really easy. It's all about framing the issues. Does a gay marriage ban do anything to protect the marriage between a man and a woman? No, it's just rhetoric. But what about creating pre-marital and family planning counseling programs for low income couples? Why not offer couples counseling for low-income married couples as well? How about fatherhood initiatives to stress the need for strong male role models in a child's life? How about public preschool programs? Or perhaps tax credits for low income parents, and emphasizing longer paid maternity and paternity leave. What about doing more to emphasize Republicans cutting thousands of kids of the CHIP program. What does that say about their family values?
By no means is this a complete laundry list, or are all of the above ideas particularly worth persuing, but my point is that Democrats cannot ignore the values debate. We must take it back, and I believe we can. Why? Republicans have a lot of talk on values, but they have little in regards to results. Instead of actually doing anything to help families deal with complicated issues such as unwanted pregnancies, abortion and homosexuality, Republicans resort to scare tactics. How does fighting to ban gay marriage actually help a man and a woman have a stronger marriage? How do laws on parental notification and banning late term abortions attack the root causes of abortion and unwanted pregnancies? The truth is that the Republicans record on values is quite pathetic. Democrats can win the values debate, but we must be willing to take on the root problems that Republicans would like to ignore.
This is a fascinating read -- it's a very detailed, in-depth look at Jim McGreevey's career. It's interesting reading my initial knee-jerk reaction to McGreevey's coming out. On one hand, I can sympathize with his difficulty in accepting his sexual orientation, but what he did was pretty much inexcusable. His advisors put it best in the Newark Star Ledger article:
The consultants laid it out again.
"An affair, okay, not bad," one adviser told McGreevey. "A gay affair, that's a little bit worse, but okay.
"You hired your lover as the homeland security adviser without credentials, four months after 9/11 -- that's it. You can't withstand that. You'll be impeached. Democrats will join Republicans."
Yup. The American people are pretty forgiving of personal foibles -- look to Bill Clinton, but when it comes to jeopardizing our national security, Americans are a bit less forgiving.
Ok, maybe in Kansas, Utah or *insert your favorite Jesusland state here*, but in case anyone had any doubt before, we have complete morons on our state board of education. I missed this last week amid my avoid-everything-political mini-hiatus, but Roman Candles covered the details of their latest moves. Take a look at some of the textbook changes proposed by Texas State Board of Education member Terri Leo (R-Spring):
A State Board of Education member stalled a vote to approve middle school health textbooks Thursday by saying the books should condemn homosexuality and make clear that marriage exists only between men and women.
Board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, called for about 30 changes to teachers' and students' editions of proposed health books in grades six through eight.
[...]
Leo said that three of the 10 middle school books up for approval would not conform to a state law banning the recognition of same-sex unions as marriages. She said they endorse same-sex marriage by referring to the heads of families as couples or adults instead of husbands and wives or fathers and mothers.
"We're considered a state agency, and we need public acts and records recognizing that marriage is between a man and a woman," she said.
Some of her suggestions, however, go beyond the marriage issue.
One passage in a teachers' edition says that "surveys indicate that 3 to 10 percent of the population is gay. No one knows for sure why some people are straight, some are bisexual and others are gay."
Leo wanted to replace those sentences with: "Opinions vary on why homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use and suicide."
"This is an effort that is both ridiculous and hateful, to essentially try to eliminate homosexuality from health textbooks," said Samantha Smoot, president of the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin group that monitors social conservatism in government.
State law says the board can judge textbooks for their factual accuracy and compliance with state curriculum guidelines. George Rislov of the Texas Education Agency's curriculum division said the guidelines for middle school health classes do not define marriage.
Perhaps worse than gay-bashing though, is some board member's insistance that the effectiveness of condoms be deemphasized:
Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas, asked that the books not stress the effectiveness of condoms in fighting sexually transmitted diseases. Patricia Hardy, R-Fort Worth, asked for a teachers' edition to include a chart about contraceptives.
One word: Morons. Of course condoms aren't 100% effective, and that ought to be stressed, but tell kids the truth. Terri Leo's interest in the increased "depression, illegal drug use and suicide" of gays and lesbians only serves to scare kids that may be unsure of their sexual orientation, and encourage discrimination against openly gay or lesbian students.
Let me put it this way. Here's a minor twist on Terri Leo's comments regarding homosexuality in coming up with a definition for a heterosexual sexual orientation:
"Opinions vary on why heterosexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like unwanted pregnancies, abortion, child abuse and molestation."
Sarah has the final update on the textbook situation. In a rare moment of sanity, the board excluded Leo's request, but they still failed to include comprehensive information about birth control and preventing STD's:
From the Texas Women’s Coalition:
The State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 13-1 today to approve all four high school health textbooks. Due in large part to the efforts of the Protect Our Kids Coalition, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill added to its two Teacher’s Editions a chart listing information about birth control and methods of preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). (The Holt Teacher’s Edition already contained this information.) Unfortunately, publishers did not add this life-saving information to their Student’s Editions. The 4 million high school students who will rely on these books for up-to-date, accurate information will be left to learn from friends, television and the Internet.
The SBOE also voted to add to the Holt middle school textbooks a definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. The publishers did not make other changes about homosexuality proposed yesterday by religious-right SBOE member Terri Leo.
So, sorta good news. I don't care about the marriage issue as much as I do about contraceptive information and homophobic language. Texas law defines marriage between a man and a woman, and I disagree with it, but I respect it as the law of the land. But Leo's proposed langauge was solely based on right-wing ideology and pseudoscience. Not including information about contraceptives is a pure failure of protecting the public health by the state. Teaching kids proper use of contraceptives prevents unwanted pregnancies, prevents abortions and saves lives. It's that simple.
Like one must in politics, the trial balloon must be floated. Hey, it's time better spent than thinking about running for Prez in 2008...
It looks like there are no changes. I'm headed to dinner, but the Quorum Report has just posted that Vo leads Heflin by 26 votes with 22 ballots yet to be counted.
Also, Kelly White gained 24 votes in counting today, but Baxter still leads by 147 with all ballots counted.
Both races should have recounts, but it looks like Vo and Baxter will emerge as victors in these two races.
Update: Here's another somewhat confusing update on the race from the AP:
Longtime Republican Rep. Talmadge Heflin, chairman of the House budget-writing committee, trailed his Democratic challenger, businessman Hubert Vo, by 26 votes Monday night after officials with the Harris County Clerk's office had gone through absentee ballots. The count continued with provisional ballots, which are used when someone's eligibility to vote is questioned.
Among the ballots were about 189 provisional and 200 absentee ballots from people who voted in the race between Heflin and Vo.
After the count of absentee ballots was complete, Vo led Heflin by a vote of 20,679 to 20,653. Vo's margin over Heflin shrank by 12 votes.
As I predicted, it looks like Heflin gained votes (twelve) from the absentee ballots putting Vo's lead at 26 votes.
At least 24 poll watchers, half Democratic and half Republican, were on hand as the ballot review that began Sunday went into a second day.
While they waited, officials with Heflin's campaign and the Republican Party of Texas accused state Democratic Party representatives of harassing and criticizing Harris County election officials for how they conducted the ballot review.
"Our primary concern is to make sure every eligible vote is counted," said Republican Party of Texas Chairwoman Tina Benkiser. "The election officials are doing their job. It's completely uncalled for and casts a pall on the process when the process is working as state law dictates."
Craig Murphy, spokesman for the Heflin campaign, said such tactics have been employed by the Democratic Party throughout the campaign.
But Karen Loper, Vo's campaign manager, denied the accusations.
Nice. I do hope that the Democratic poll watchers are doing their job adequately harassing and criticizing Republicans and Harris County election officials after they've done a good job trying to steal this election for Talmadge Heflin. It's fun to see the Republicans whine and complain when there just aren't enough votes left to steal -- or so we can hope.
Vote-counting in the District 149 state legislature race continues (Houston Chronicle).
I'm sorry, but I can't take claims of male victimhood stemming from (and lets face it) cutesy advertisement too seriously.
The whole joke of the ad being complained about here isn't that men are inferior. The joke is that its natural for men to have a fascination with gadgetry, it's natural for adults not to understand said gadgetry as well as adults, and its okay for men to be on the receiving end of some soft jabs, because, dammit, we're men, we can take it, at the end of the day its still our world. Since the dawn of humanity there's always been the ol' man, and I imagine that every non-reactionary society since has had some kind of well-meaning dad jokes.
P.S.: Incidentally, I note that most of the people who get all pissy about this sort of thing seem to be pushing reactionary social agendas (e.g. "its unfair that women get to decide about abortions." -- maybe when men get pregnant, we'll have a right to complain?).
After a couple-of-day hiatus of trying to ignore the news and the blogosphere, I crawled my way back here. I was cleaning my apartment this afternoon, and managed to finally unpack from New Mexico. That got me curious as to how Kerry did in Doña Ana County, where we block walked last weekend...
Kerry won:
PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
JOHN F. KERRY and JOHN EDWARDS Democratic 30602 50.8%
GEORGE W. BUSH and DICK CHENEY Republican 29023 48.2%
DAVID COBB and PATRICIA LaMARCHE Green 96 0.2%
MICHAEL PEROUTKA and DR. CHUCK BALDWIN Constitution 52 0.1%
MICHAEL BADNARIK and RICHARD V. CAMPAGNA Libertarian 125 0.2%
RALPH NADER and PETER MIGUEL CAMEJO Independent 336 0.6%
Kerry's margin this year was slightly smaller than Gore's 2000 margin in the county:
Gore 23,905 51%
Bush 21,261 46%
Nader 1,158 3%
In the rest of the races in Doña Ana County, I don't think that there were any significant changes. Democrats came within a few hundred votes of picking up a couple of state house races, but fell short in both cases. I was disappointed to see the one candidate we had the chance to meet -- challenger for state representative, Jeff Steinborn lose by about 400 votes or 3%.
Overall, it looks as if Bush's 2004 victory in New Mexico is due to the increase of his margins in the rural areas (espeically in the south) of the state. Kerry improved upon Gore's margin in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but Bush improved upon his own margin in many of the rural counties. That offset Kerry's gains and more. It's a similar pattern nationwide. Kerry did even better than Gore in many urban counties, but that margin was offset everywhere by Republicans significantly improving on their rural margins. This ought to teach Democrats several things.
First, the Republicans decided early on in the campaign cycle to wage a campaign centered around base-vote mobilization. Democrats mobilized our urban base like never before, but it wasn't enough. No longer can Democrats pretend that we can always squeeze out a few more votes in our urban counties. We did that -- and while it was enough to carry states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, it's not enough to get us to 270 electoral votes. Second, given this reality, Democrats must make a decision for 2008. In order to win national elections, we must aggressively court either suburban or rural voters. Both groups require different approaches, and the issues that appeal to one group are often opposed by the other. I tend to think that courting suburban voters is the way to go. That doesn't mean that we abandon rural areas, but that suburban voters offer Democrats the greatest potential.
A cursory look at Texas state representative races suggests that Democrats have great prospects with the suburban vote. Our three (assuming Vo's victory holds up) pick-ups were all in more-or-less suburban districts (Strama, Vo, Liebowitz), whereas our two losses were in more-or-less rural districts (Mabry, Ellis). Looking further into the results also shows a greater rural / suburban divide. Republicans did better than expected throughout east Texas. Max Sandlin -- supposedly even in some polls, got trounced. Meanwhile, Richard Morrison lost by a smaller margin in a suburban district. In races where one party did better than expected, Republicans did better than expected in their challenge to WD-40s (aka rural Democrats). I don't think any Democrats saw Dan Ellis's defeat coming, and I don't think many of us thought that Mark Homer or Jim McReynolds would have come as close to losing as they did. On the other hand Kelly White, Harriet Miller, Katy Hubener and others ran extremely effective campaigns against incumbent Republicans in relatively suburban districts.
My analysis of this election in the coming weeks will likely focus on the question of what went right -- espeically in suburban areas where voters responded to candidates like Mark Strama and Hubert Vo. I'm convinced that their are two keys to Democrats regaining a majority in Texas. First, is maintaining and expanding the Hispanic vote -- a challenge, but I'm confident. Second, however is the suburban vote. Right now, it's solidly Republican in this state. But, that's changing as we saw on Tuesday. By no means am I suggesting that Collin and Williamson county will carry Democrats to victory in 2006. That's lunacy. But make no mistake about it -- Democrats defeated three* Republican incumbents in suburban seats on Tuesday. That's not an accident.
I don't have any new news in regards to the Heflin / Vo recount other than this AP article:
Nearly a week after the general election, the race between one of the most powerful lawmakers in the Texas House and a political novice remained undecided Sunday.
Longtime Republican Rep. Talmadge Heflin, the chairman of the House budget-writing committee, is trailing his Democratic challenger, businessman Hubert Vo, by just a few dozen votes.
The absentee or mail-in ballots and the provisional ballots, used when someone's eligibility to vote is questioned, had yet to be counted in the race.
Vo had asked election officials to delay that count from Thursday until Sunday when a countywide ballot canvassing was scheduled.
Officials began but didn't finish counting the county's 3,000 absentee ballots on Sunday. They planned to finish on Monday as well as count 4,000 provisional ballots.
Intermingled with all these ballots are about 189 provisional and 200 absentee ones from people who voted in the race between Heflin and Vo.
This process is usually without much fanfare but this time it had at least 24 poll watchers, half Democrat and half Republican, looking on and taking notes.
Hopefully, we'll have some (good) news tomorrow.
Update: Ok, here's my attempt at crunching some numbers from the district. Of much interest to me is the decrease of Vo's margin from 110 to 52 to 38. With a 110 vote margin, the election seemed pretty secure. Assuming that there are 378 outstanding ballots, Heflin would need 65% of those votes in order to win. With a 38 vote margin, Heflin only needs 55% of those votes. Looking at the absentee votes already counted in the race Heflin won over 75%. However, only 200 of the estimated 387 votes are absentee ballots. The rest are provisional ballots - which I expect would lean Democratic. So -- who knows. This will surely end up with a recount either way. I doubt that we'll have a clear winner tomorrow, but if Andrew says the GOP is stealing this one, we'll do our best to ensure that they don't get away with it.
You know you've been wondering what the rage about Jesus Land is all about.
Thanks.
Overseas and provisional votes won't be tabulated until Monday the 8th, and results won't be available until Wednesday the 10th. So we shall soon know if White or Baxter will be going to the Capitol in the spring.
The Travis County Clerk's Elections Division has completed the analysis of overseas ballots that are still eligible to be received and counted in the November 2, 2004, election contests involving the State Representative, District 48, and State Representative, District 50.
In District 48 , there are 224 Overseas Ballots that are eligible to be counted if received by Sun., November 7. In District 50, there are 189 Overseas Ballots that are eligible.
As previously announced, there are additional provisional ballots being reviewed to determine their eligibility. In District 48, there were a total of 163 provisional ballots cast in Early Voting and on Election Day. In District 50, there were a total of 256 provisional ballots cast in Early Voting and on Election Day.
Thus, in District 48, there is a maximum of 387 ballots that could possibly be eligible to be counted in this contest. In District 50, there is a maximum of 445 ballots that could possibly be eligible to be counted in this contest.
District 48 Margin of defeat for Kelly White before these ballots are counted= 171. There are enough ballots to make up the margin. White is also asking and paying for a recount. Cost=$30,000. You can still donate.
District 50 Margin of victory for Mark Strama= 556. There are not enough ballots, even if all went to Stick to make up the margin.
I was supposed to meet some people to watch the OSU game. They didn't show. So instead of getting drunk and yelling at a big screen TV, I did the next best thing. I went to Super Target.
I had heard (from Atrios among others) that Brian Wilson's Smile was either the best album ever made, or simple "good", or somewhere in between.
I'd never been much of a devotee of the Beach Boys, but as an amateur Beatle-ologist, my interest was piqued insofar as Smile was originally conceived to "one-up" Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I have to say I am very impressed with the album, and have to join the millions of people who wonder just how music history might have changed had Brian Wilson not gone nuts, and this album had been released in the late 1960s.
After winning a so called "mandate" of 51% thanks to an underground hate based campaign, President Bush says he wants to unite the country, work with Democrats, and move forward.
These are three things he has failed to do for 4 years, even when offered the chance to do so after the 2000 election and 9/11. I expect him to lie as usual and continue to push his right-wing grounded agenda.
Because Bush Stands by Rejection of Kyoto Treaty even as Russia signs on with the rest of the intellectual world in attempting to do at least something for the future of our global environment.
Why?
"President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Oh, President Bush, worried about JOBS! Haha, that's almost funny until I think about how many jobs he's lost with his own economic policies which are running this country and it's budget into the ground. And he wants to reform Social Security? With what? His good looks?
Well I'll just let him ponder that one while Insurgents in Iraq killed more Americans today.
If you thought the days of stealing elections after the votes had been cast went away with Boss Parr and Richard Daley, you would be wrong. Down in Houston right now we have a real effort to steal away the biggest Democratic victory in Texas right from under our feet.
This week, rookie candidate Hubert Vo knocked off 22-year incumbent Talmadge Heflin in a close race on Houston's southwest side. When Harris Co. Clerk Beverly Kaufman sent her staff home at 9:30 p.m. Election Night, Vo's margin of victory stood at 110 votes. When Wednesday morning dawned, that margin had been narrowed to 52. Now it stands at 38.
How did the vote change in the middle of the night? Kaufman has no explanation. But her elections administrator, David Beirne, a GOP operative and veteran of the South Florida debacle four years ago, has assured observers: "Talmadge Heflin will win this race." Furthermore, Tom Craddick himself has said "Hubert Vo will never be a member of my House." And when Tom DeLay's attorney and architect of the 2003 redistricting Andy Taylor was sent to oversee the effort Craddick told him "Don't come back without Heflin."
At least one poll worker was denied an opportunity to serve as an election judge after being grilled on his partisan identification. When he told them he had voted in the Democratic primary he was turned down for the position. Partisan chicanery is going on bigtime in this race, and it is important that we try and get the word out.
Even Secretary of State Geoff Connor, a Rick Perry appointee, has stepped in to demand an explanation from Kaufman and her staff about the many irregularities in the vote tally. Kaufman responded by letter on Thursday, telling the Secretary of State that "at Mr. Heflin's urging," she was going to resume the count that afternoon of thousands of ballots inexplicably left uncounted since Election Night. Connor responded that to resume the count then would be against the law, and Kaufman backed down.
Now, the final tabulation of countywide mail-in and provisional ballots not included in the Election Night count is scheduled to begin Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Present will be Tom DeLay's favorite lawyer, Andy Taylor, representing Heflin. Also present will be Floridian David Beirne, who has already predicted the outcome.
Hubert Vo came to this state 30 years ago from his native Vietnam with little more than the shirt on his back. He got an education, raised a family, and built a successful business in his pursuit of the American Dream. But in his first campaign for public office, he has run into the buzzsaw of the corrupt GOP machine in Austin that is willing to do anything to preserve Heflin's seat -- and Speaker Tom Craddick's chances to be re-elected.
Outsiders are tampering with the House District 149 vote for reasons that have nothing to do with the expressed will of the voters of that district. Will this mini-Miami turn into a full-blown Florida this weekend?
Please contact the following people and tell them that in America we count every vote and we only count it once. That people decide elections, whether we like their judgment or not. Tell them to stand down and let the voters' will go forth- that Hubert Vo serve them in the Texas Legislature.
TALMADGE HEFLIN -- 281-530-1110 Campaign office
campaign@talmadgeheflin.com
BEVERLY KAUFMAN -- 713-755-6405 County office
bkaufman@cco.hctx.net
Now this is an amusing site. I dropped a profile there in part to make penance for my f*bomb towards the "flee to Canada" crowd.
Do gays have the right to buy cheeseburgers?
Also, I am also hyper-sensitive to the "ban all fast food" people's dripping condescension (what can I say, I am a piggy-boy). Perhaps this is a microcosm of the larger issue of "moral values."
How many Bush voters think that it's only a matter of time before we live in a world where we're all forced to eat tofu and grape-nuts for every meal?
Win or lose, after one of these sorts of campaigns one tends to be a little bit burned out. Especially if you're on the side that comes up short.
We've tuned in, turned off, and dropped out. Time to tune out, turn on, and drop in for a while. It's part of the natural balance of things.
So now I think I'm going to take a year and try not to be so obsessive-compulsive about this politics thing. I'm going to play games (some of political nature*) and do some good works (the good thing about charity, compared to politics, is that you don't have to spend months or years fighting people in order to get something done). may... may... try to actually put more effort into school work.
That isn't to say that I am slacking off entirely. I'm still going to be a virtuous, civic-minded, well-informed American.
And I'm not going to stop blogging. But I'll probably be posting mostly fart jokes and sports scores for a while.
* The standard here is whether we're talking real-word politics or not. That won't keep me from fighting hard for, say, the Angry Troll Party in the online simulated Republic of Make-Believe.
Okay, here's my 2 cents on the events of Tuesday night in the extended entry...
(Update): I forgot one, read the new Lesson 7 if you haven't already
1. People Don't Vote Out the President During a War
Most Americans think we are on the wrong track, think that Bush is not doing so hot and think that the economy is in the shitter. Turnout was the highest it has been in 36 years, usually a good sign for Democrats. Yet Bush was reelected relatively easily, the Senate gained 4 Republicans and the House got more Republican as well. Some of this can be attributed to continuing regional trends, but more than anything it is a sign that people will stick with a guy they disagree with when the bullets are flying. Only when the war is an undeniable quagmire (and most of the country as well as this observer would say it is quite the opposite) will they kick them out (see 1968). Bush had this going for him and it helped trump almost everything else.
2. Liberalism is On the Outs
In 9 presidential elections we have elected Democrats in only 3 of them (four if you count Gore, but that was a tossup really). Each time (including Gore), it was a moderate, southern religious type. Liberalism might benefit from the ground game we built for this election, much like conservativism was ultimately helped by Goldwater, despite his defeat. But except for the coasts and a small part of the Upper Midwest, the vast majority of America is fundamentally conservative. They are religious, anti-tax, pro-gun, pro-war. We can try to change their minds, but this trend goes back much further than Bush. The good news is these people split their tickets for moderate Democrats who support the general party line but still don't take their marching orders from the liberal wing. Montana elected a Democratic governor, Indiana reelected a Democratic senator, Colorado elected a Democrat to the Senate and the race was surprisingly close elsewhere. But if we want to win we need to return to a party of the middle class- a Clinton New Democrat kind of place.
3. Vote for the Guy Who Inspires You... Within Reason
Before Tuesday I thought that simply running a campaign of how much you hate the other guy would suffice. I thought that despite the lack of any real enthusiasm for Kerry, the hatred of Bush would put us over the top. I was wrong wrong wrong. Campaigns have to have a positive vision and an articulate, inspiring spokesperson. Bush inspires and excites his base- Kerry was just a stand-in for the more amorphous hatred of Bush. A candidate who could excite people on his own- Dean, Clark, Edwards- probably would have done better. In the end, don't try and pick someone because they are "electable," pick them because you think they are the most exciting. Obviously if Kucinich or Sharpton rocked your socks, you should consider voting for someone who doesn't look like a troll or have a history of hating white people.
4. Districts Drawn to Elect Republicans/Democrats Usually Do Just That
We had 5 candidates redrawn into shit congressional districts this year. Despite the great campaigns ran by all of them and the weak candidates at least 4 of them drew, 4 of the 5 lost. This isn't because the Republicans are better, and though we could have done better it isn't because the Democrats ran bad campaigns. It is because people a lot smarter than us drew maps to elect only a Republican, and it worked. We need to stop partisan redistricting if we want a truly representative and effective congress and Texas 2004 proved that.
5. Raising Money Is Priority Number One
The DCCC and other organizations designed to elect people to office pick candidates primarly on how much time they spend raising money. A good candidate spends about 6-8 hours a day or so doing that. A bad one doesn't. Jim Dougherty in Houston was a good candidate on the outside, but lost because he didn't raise the money. Without putting the time and effort into raising enough money, he got 44% in a Republican district. A better candidate could have won. If we want to win we need to recruit candidates who will do the work necessary to pick up the phone and ask for cash. It is a sad reality, but it is true.
6. All Other Things Being Equal (or Even Kinda Unequal), the Candidate That Works Hardest Wins
Hubert Vo appears to have beaten the 20 year incumbent chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Talmadge Heflin. Vo knocked on several thousand doors, wore out several pairs of shoes and busted his balls to win that race. Of course, working the night shift and going to college all day only months after traveling to the United States with nothing but the clothes on his back prepared him well. Heflin, on the other hand, sat up on his coondog and expected incumbency to carry him to victory. On the flip side, John Otto busted tail in East Texas while 3 term incumben Dan Ellis decided to take it easy. Otto won and Ellis lost. If you want to win, you have to work and if you work harder than the other guy as long as the district is somewhat competitive and you have enough money to keep your name on people's lips (see Lesson 5), you will win. Hard work does pay off, and Talmadge Heflin and Dan Ellis learned that one the hard way.
7. (Added After Initial Post) Wedge Issues Work
The most surprising thing is that the number one issue on people's minds wasn't the War or the economy, but rather "moral issues." This doesn't mean voting out a leader who lies, exposes CIA agents and uses racism to keep himself in office, but rather keepin' queers from marryin' and keepin' ladies from abortin'. Karl Rove knew that he needed more evangelicals to vote if he wanted his boy to win, and he knew that guns, gays, God and abortion would turn them out. As a result, he played these issues up, got anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives on 11 ballots and got the church goers to the polls. Tada- Bush is elected.
There are two options here. The first is unacceptable in many ways- give up our positions on these issues. I think on guns this is preferable. Gun control doesn't really work, it pisses off a lot of people and it is lazy. We always argue that the solution to crime is in fighting the causes of crime- poverty, lack of education, etc. Banning guns is reacting to the sympton, not fighting the cause and we ought to jettison this issue. But abortion and the rights of all people- including gays- are non-negotiable for most of us. The second is to (as 'stina put it) reframe these issues and draw attention away from them. Gay rights is a civil rights issue and when Republicans bash them for political gain it is no better than when Southern Democrats used to use racism for gain. We ought to say so. Banning abortion is pushing one particular religious view onto other people, much like the enemies we are fighting do. We ought to say something similar. And then we ought to point out that the real problem is the crisis in marriage in general created in large part by financial insecurity and the high number of children born out of wedlock because of bad faith federal education funding. If we turn the gay/abortion debate into a debate about education and the economy, we can win. We ought to do this all over and it will succeed.
On a Texas specific side note, this has good implications for 2006. Essentially, the heart and soul of the Republican Party now belongs to the theocrats. In the South, the idea of a pro-choice woman winning a contested Republican primary with a viable pro-life candidate in the running is pretty far-fetched. Kay Bailey Hutchison may be popular, but 3-6 months of Rick Perry calling her a baby killer in her first contested GOP primary ought to put a stake in the heart of her campaign. And then, at the end of a brutal and nasty primary campaign, the unpopular Rick Perry has to fight off a Democrat. Texas could have a Democratic governor because of this issue if we simply reframe the issue as I have suggested above.
8. Things Are Looking Good for Texas Democrats
In 2002 only the very inner cities and the very Hispanic parts of South Texas went for the Democrats and only about 1/3 of the state could be considered "base Democrats." Now Democrats are starting to take over the biggest urban counties as Harris County saw an uptick in Dem voters, Dallas elected a Lesbian Latina Democrat as Sheriff and Democrats easily swept Travis County. Also, the inner suburbs- not the exurbs like Frisco, Georgetown or Katy- places like Grand Prairie, Pflugerville and Alief are starting to consider voting for the Democrats. In Grand Prairie, Ray Allen narrowly escaped defeat at the hands of an environmental activist Democrat. In Alief, Vo beat Heflin. In Pflugerville Mark Strama beat Jack Stick. If we can take the big 4 counties- Dallas, Harris, Bexar and Travis- with big numbers and add in their inner suburban counterparts, we can start winning statewide races.
But we also have to improve turnout in South Texas. Hidalgo County in 2002 had less than 72,000 votes for the biggest race on the ballot. In 2004, they had 115,000. In 2000, it was 101,000. In 2000, Webb had fewer than 32,000 votes for President. In 2002 it was just over 39,000. In 2004, it was 41,500. The turnout trend in South Texas is in our favor- if we can continue stoking these flames, we win races.
Finally, in 2002 Tom Ramsey ran for Agriculture Commissioner against incumbent Susan Combs. Neither really ran a campaign for the down ballot office and Combs was an incumbent. Ramsay got 37.8% of the vote. This year, neither campaign for Texas Supreme Court- David Van Os for the Democrats or Scott Brister for the GOP- did anything beyond some signs, bumper stickers and campaign speeches. David Van Os got 40.75% of the vote. That means that Democrats increased their base by roughly 3 points in 2 years. If we do that again before 2004, we start out with a base of 44% and need only increase turnout in South Texas, keep swinging the votes in the inner suburbs and big 4 counties and we have a race on our hands. This is good news for Texas.
So the summary is this: we need candidates with a positive, creative, inspiring message that doesn't fall back on old liberal cliches. We have to raise money and work hard and try and get districts that are fair for the people of Texas. And we have to either win this war or lose it bad if we want to start winning again. I would never cheer against our troops and I think we are doing a helluva job over there right now, so I suspect the former will happen before 2008. But in the end things are looking up for Texas right now and if we work hard and play our cards right, things will be even better in 2006.
This time with Jack Stick:
Stick, who got married as early voting was beginning, sent out a last-minute mailer with his wedding photos. Stick touted his opposition to same-sex marriage while citing Strama's endorsement by the Austin Lesbian/Gay Political Caucus.
Gay-baiting tactics may work in rural areas, but I think urban and suburban areas are rejecting it. I'm a board member of the ALGPC (as well as LGRL - Lesbian / Gay Rights Lobby of Texas). Our PAC donated a couple of thousand dollars to each of Strama, White, Hubener and Vo -- so while things could have been better, we've clearly made gains in electing more pro-GLBT state representatives.
It's a good speech, but nothing too remarkable. It's hard to beat Gore's concession speech though, after everything that he went through. Kerry looks a bit like he's in shock as well. I don't think neither him, nor John Edwards know what is next in their life. Both are good and honorable men that put themselves, their names and their families on the line against an unprecedented barrage of despicable and malicious attack advertisements against them by the Bush campaign, the Republican party, the Swift Boat folks, groups attacking trial laywers, etc. You have to feel for them and their families.
Back to the overall picture, I agree with most of what Jim has to say. Democrats must re-evaluate our strategies. Something went horribly wrong last night. I've spoken with various friends across the state, and elsewhere in the country in other states who are inclined to buy into conspiracy theories and fraud. That's silly. Unlike four years ago, George Bush won this election fair and square, and he has a small, yet clear popular vote mandate. I accept that.
I can't, however, in good conscience give President Bush a "fair shake". Jim writes that he has a historic opportunity to unite America. I disagree. He had that historic opportunity to do that in 2001, and he failed. How can I give a president that has governed from the far-right, that has sought to divide Americans by using the lives of gays and lesbians as a wedge issue, that has shown no interest in helping young people get a better education or well-paying jobs, that has divided Americans by states and region (the constant reminder that Kerry is a "Massachusetts" liberal -- somehow suggesting that Massachusetts, the birthplace of our nation and our democracy, is not as American as say... Texas), and has bungled just about everything in Iraq -- how can I give this president a "fair shake"? George Bush had a choice after winning four years ago, and then again after 9/11 to govern from the center and unite Americans. Both times, he rejected that course in favor of consolidating his base, and governing from the far right. For that, I can't muster a single ounce of respect for the man. There's a lot of Republicans that I can respect, and that I can give the benefit of the doubt from time to time. George W. Bush is not one of them.
So what is next? I don't know. We must follow the lead of John Edwards from today, and continue the fight. We are the loyal opposition. I hope that Democrats spend at least a few weeks reflecting on the elections before pointing fingers and blaming one group over another. I'll go on the record with this right now. John Kerry was the absolute best Democratic nominee given our options. Sure, Kerry made mistakes. Kerry was an imperfect and flawed candidate in many ways, but he is a patriot whose life and long career in public service exuded the ideals of the Democratic Party, and more importantly of America.
The Deaniacs will argue that a more principled candidate such as Dean could have made a more coherent case against Bush. I find it hard to accept an arguement that Howard Dean -- a man with little to no foreign policy experience could have made the sell to the American people that he could be an acceptable choice in leading the war on terrorism. The hawkish / conservative wing of the party will argue that Joe Lieberman would have done better. They might be right that Democrats need to move in a more hawkish foreign policy position in order to win national elections, but Joe Lieberman could never have inspired the Democratic base to give the hundreds of millions of dollars, and to volunteer on election day in the millions that made the election as close as it was.
The fact is that there is no leader of the Democratic party right now, and no obvious candidate (not to mention nominee) for President in 2008. Hillary will probably run, although I hope she does not. Edwards really doesn't have anywhere to go. I'm sure that he'll find something productive to do over the next four years -- but nothing that would give him a platform for a national campaign. If he has presidential ambitions, his best chance is probably to go home to North Carolina, watch his kids grow up a little bit, and run for NC Governor or Senate in 2008, perhaps setting up a run from president in 2012. Barack Obama is a true rising star, and has a bright future of many years of public service ahead of him. I'm grateful for that, because that man is truly a gift to our party and our nation. Here in Texas, Hubert Vo, Mark Strama and Lupe Valdez won key elections that give me hope for the future of our state -- despite painful losses in the congressional races here in Texas.
Who knows what the next four years will bring. I do fear for America, and that fear and frustration was obviously reflective in my posts over the past 12 hours or so. Sorry about all the F-bombs, Chris. As for the Bush gloaters in the comments, say what you want. I can take it. The Democratic Party has a long, painful road ahead, but it's a process Democrats need to explore together, and our fight must continue. The American people have spoken, and God Bless them. I'm glad it's all over. I need a vacation.
Democrats held their ground in the 3rd Court of Appeals District. Diane Henson nearly picked off a seat, and Jan Patterson held her seat in the sprawling multicounty district. Both Patterson (D) and Pemberton (R) retained their seats by similar three-point margins.
Here's the numbers:
Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 4
Bill Green REP 361,768 48.23%
Jan Patterson (I) DEM 388,370 51.77%
Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 6 - Unexpired Term
Bob Pemberton (I) REP 385,573 51.56%
Diane Henson DEM 362,312 48.44%
Jan Patterson can thank Travis County for her victory. We gave her an 82,000 vote margin in her 27,000 vote victory.
Kerry has conceded. The election has ended. But let us look forward to the future with optimism.
Don't get me wrong, we are truly in a horrible position to be in... as Democrats and progressives. We are a populist movement without the people, which is sort of like being a ship with no moorings. The temptation is towards drift, and despair, and if we do not take a more enlightened course we will soon truly be lost.
To use a metaphor: John Milton wrote that hell is a burning place of "utter darkness." If we're gonna get out of this place, what we need now certainly isn't heat. What we need now is light.
Let's not point fingers and divide ourselves. There is blame to go around, but let's look at this analytically and without unfair recriminations.
Don't single out the 527s or GOTV. This year we turned out more Democrats than ever before in history.
Don't single out our candidate, Senator Kerry. He is and always will be a hero to me, because he gave our cause a voice when the odds were against us.
Don't blame liberals, or gays, or minorities; don't believe that we lost because we stood up for what was fair and just.
Every one who put their effort into this campaign deserves the thanks and praise of us all.
What we must do now is re-evaluate our message and our strategies.
But for the time being, we need to give President Bush a fair shake. He has a historic opportunity to re-unite America, which is something our country needs desperately. He can choose now to be a president that can make all Americans proud. If he does that, he will have earned my respect.
Moreover, we need to procede in good faith to solve the massive problems facing our country. That doesn't mean caving into every charge of obstructionism; it means putting country above party.
Let's roll
I just woke up and saw the news. He's called Bush to concede. I'm just sort of sitting here in shock. There's nothing he can say to give me resolution or acceptance of what happened last night. Bush will speak at 2 PM. I won't be able to watch. What the fuck is wrong with America?
I'm back home from KUT. Things are pointing to a Bush victory, although I'm not sure what the heck is going on in Ohio. I don't think we'll have a resolution in the presidential race anytime in the next couple of hours, so I'm going to put up some posts on other races. Regardless, it's a disappointing night for Democrats - especially in the U.S. Senate. Here in Texas things are pretty bleak overall. It looks like Chet Edwards won (thank God), but that's it. I'll have some good news on a few things here. Mark Strama has beaten Jack Stick tonight, the Wohlgemonster has lost, as has Phil Crane, and I feel good about some gains I'm seeing in Dallas County races.
As we've been chatting about the returns, Jim said this to me: "If we win, great, but something went seriously wrong tonight. There is something seriously wrong with our party and the way we are doing things. What worries me especially is that the "easiest" people to blame are the people who worked hardest here: young people, liberals, etc.". I'm inclined to agree. If Kerry contests this thing, I'll be on the streets tomorrow to fight with him, but if not, Democrats have some serious soul searching to do. It's not a process I look forward to do.
I'm going to date this for tomorrow morning, even though this is being posted at 1:25 AM -- I think it's a bit more important a post than my thoughts on the Dallas Sheriff's race (among others).
Daschle lost. Fuck John Thune. I had the opportunity to meet Dick Durbin at the Democratic convention this summer, and he's a fantastic spokesman and leader in the Democratic caucus. He's a progressive / liberal Democrat with a backbone, but as a Midwesterner from southern Illinois it's hard to label him as a wild-eyed liberal. Also, I think it's important to have a Democratic leader from a solidly Democratic state. I think either Chris Dodd or Dick Durbin would fit the bill in that respect. Senate Democrats were hurt on many occasions in the past year or two by Daschle's need to show conservative credentials to the voters back home in South Dakota. That's a concern that Dodd or Durbin won't have.
Good news for Democrats in three state rep races.
Hubert Vo has defeated tuition-deregulation leader Talmadge Heflin by a razor-thin 52 votes. The Houston Chronicle reports:
Republican Talmadge Heflin, one of the state's most powerful legislators, was upset by businessman Hubert Vo late Tuesday, losing a close race for the seat Heflin has held for more than two decades.
In complete but unofficial returns, Vo had a 52-vote margin over Heflin, who leads the influential House Appropriations Committee.
In other Harris County state House races, Republican incumbent Martha Wong and Democratic incumbent Scott Hochberg beat back strong challenges to hold their seats.
I'm sure there will be a recount there, but its good to see Vo in the lead.
Talmadge Heflin (I) REP 20,532 49.94%
Hubert Vo DEM 20,584 50.06%
Mark Strama has also won tonight over Jack Stick.
Jack Stick (I) REP 30,795 47.72%
Mark Strama DEM 31,351 48.58%
Greg Knowles LIB 2,389 3.70%
That's a 556 vote margin. It ought to be enough to hold.
There will also be a challenge in district 48:
State Representative District 48
Todd Baxter (I) REP 34,375 50.12%
Kelly White DEM 34,204 49.88%
That's 171 votes. White's folks say there are still some votes that have not been counted yet in precincts where they ran out of ballots. Baxter probably holds on, but there wil surely be a recount here.
It also looks as if David Leibowitz has defeated incumbent Republican Ken Mercer in San Antonio by 512 votes:
Ken Mercer (I) REP 19,072 49.33%
David McQuade Leibowitz DEM 19,588 50.67%
Good news there. There might be a recount, but the numbers look good. This is an expected correction in a Democratic district, although I would have anticipated a larger margin.
In other state rep races two Democrats have fallen.
HD 18:
John Otto REP 26,301 54.56%
Dan Ellis (I) DEM 21,909 45.44%
HD 56:
Charles "Doc" Anderson REP 31,035 52.59%
John Mabry (I) DEM 27,977 47.41%
Right now it looks like Democrats have gained one seat in the state house. That's the first time Democrats have gained seats in the state house since 1972. Not what a lot of us would have liked to have seen, but it's a step in the right direction. I'm a little bit flattered that I essentially called 149/150 of the state rep races correctly in my projections last week (my only incorrect call was Ellis over Otto). Of the six competetive congressional races, I was also correct in four of six congressional races (I was incorrect in my calls for Sandlin and Frost).
Good news out of Travis County tonight. Once again, Democrats swept all countywide races (PDF file). Two great candidates that I've had the opportunity to get to know over the past months have won countywide races tonight -- Stephen Yelenosky and Greg Hamilton:
District Judge, 345th District:
Patrick Keel (REP) 44.29% 147,391
Stephen Yelenosky (DEM) 55.71% 185,397
Travis County Sheriff:
Duane McNeill (REP) 39.26% 131,703
Greg Hamilton (DEM) 55.56% 186,376
Allan Juranek (LIB) 5.19% 17,396
I'm a bit surprised with the Libertarian numbers in the sheriff's race. Very intersting.
Another Democratic pick-up in Travis County is the Precinct 3 Constable race - a bit of a surprise in a relatively GOP precinct:
Thornton Keel (REP) 46.80% 29,819
Richard T. McCain (DEM) 53.20% 33,901
That's good news. The Keel name doesn't mean a damn thing. Both of State Rep. Terry Keel's brothers -- Patrick and Thornton Keel went down in defeat tonight.
Lupe Valdez wins!!!!
The Dallas Morning News reports:
Democrat Lupe Valdez became Dallas County's first female and first Hispanic elected sheriff last night, edging out a three-decade veteran of the sheriff's department.
In defeating Republican opponent Danny Chandler, she also became the first new sheriff in 20 years and the first Democrat to hold the post since the mid-1970s.
"I'm looking forward to a change," a jubilant Ms. Valdez said. "We are an international county, and this is what I want to represent."
It's nice to see gay-baiting tactics fail.
Here's the final returns:
Danny Chandler (REP) 319,494 48.65
Lupe Valdez (DEM) 337,228 51.35
Two years ago, a single Democrat -- Sally Montgomery broke through the Republican lock on Dallas countywide offices. This year, Dallas County Democrats have won a number of countywide races -- further evidence that Dallas County is turning blue.
Democrats won the following judicial races in Dallas County tonight (ALL pickups from the GOP):
Bill Rhea (REP) 316,565 48.93%
Lorraine Raggio (DEM) 330,462 51.07%
Cliff Stricklin (REP) 319,642 49.63%
Don Adams (DEM) 324,401 50.37%
Beth Maultsby (REP) 321,209 49.46%
Dennise Garcia (DEM) 328,199 50.54%
Republicans won a few of the races also by excruciatingly close margins:
Robert Frost (REP) 331,542 50.83%
Carlos R. Cortez (DEM) 320,742 49.17%
Robert W. Francis (REP) 323,329 50.17%
Carter Thompson (DEM) 321,121 49.83%
Dallas County Democrats won three of the five contested countywide judicial races. Dallas County is turning Democratic.
We didn't pick up any state rep seats in the county. Katy Hubener ran a good, strong campaign, but as much as I wanted her to win, she topped out in the high 40s:
Ray Allen (REP) 18,795 52.59%
Katy Hubener (DEM) 16,945 47.41%
Katy is a friend of mine, and she ran a great campaign. She got off to a bit of a slow start, but she found her stride, and closed very strong in the final months. She'll have to decide what she wants to do, but if she runs again in 2006, she has my support, and she has a great shot.
Hariet Miller did much better than I expected in HD 102:
Tony Goolsby (REP) 21,410 53.20%
Harriet Miller (DEM) 18,836 46.80%
This is a north Dallas Republican seat, so the closeness of the race surprised me, but perhaps this suggests that this seat is in play in two years.
I'll be focusing on the returns for the congressional races in this thread with a focus on the Texas races. Feel free to use the comment thread as an open thread on the Texas House races until things get going... I'll start posting as soon as the polls close and the early vote comes in at 7 PM. Texas returns will be here. The DCCC has returns as they come in on their Resultron Blog.
CD 32 Early Vote:
Pete Sessions - Incumbent REP 61,024 57.61%
Martin Frost - Incumbent DEM 43,775 41.33%
Michael David Needleman LIB 1,123 1.06%
Early vote trends Republican, but I'm not sure that Frost can overcome a 16% margin.
9:15: Looking at the numbers so far, I'd guess all the Texas Democrats in targetted races lose except for Sandlin Edwards (I meant to say Edwards earlier). Bummer.
I'll be focusing on the returns for the state house races in this thread. Feel free to use the comment thread as an open thread on the Texas House races until things get going... I'll start posting as soon as the polls close, and the early vote comes in at 7 PM. Thirty-seven percent of Travis County voted early, and those returns should be posted shortly after 7 PM -- so we'll probably have a good idea on the Strama and White races early on. Texas returns will come in here, Travis County returns will come in here, Dallas County here and Harris County here.
7:30: Early vote in select State House Races. (I) for incumbents:
HD 1:
Snow REP 1,948 41.45%
Frost DEM 2,752 58.55%
HD 9:
Blake REP 7,717 58.04%
Moore DEM 5,578 41.96%
HD 11:
Alberts REP 5,420 47.54%
Hopson (I) DEM 5,980 52.46%
HD 19:
Hamilton (I) REP 7,852 52.90%
Peveto DEM 6,991 47.10%
HD 35:
Opiela REP 5,234 50.87%
Gonzalez Toureilles DEM 5,054
HD 45:
Askew REP 13,514 45.50%
Rose - (I) DEM 16,190 54.50%
HD 48:
Baxter (I) REP 22,647 50.26%
White DEM 22,413 49.74%
HD 50:
Stick (I) REP 18,242 46.78%
Strama DEM 19,593 50.25%
HD 106:
Allen (I) REP 10,876 56.82%
Hubener DEM 8,264 43.18%
HD 117:
Mercer (I) REP 11,817 52.37%
Leibowitz DEM 10,746 47.63%
I'll be the Democratic analyst on Austin's NPR affiliate KUT 90.5 in the 11 PM hour tonight (there'll be a moderator and a Republican analyst as well). Use this as an open thread on my analysis - I think I'll be coming on right about 11:20 PM. If you're out of the Austin area, there's a live stream where you can catch it.
Very good early returns out of Kentucky Senate Race with 35.6% reporting:
Daniel Mongiardo D 303,342 54.3%
Jim Bunning R 254,964 45.7%
For all you smarties with pop-up blockers:
And apologies for the large image size. For those of you with dial-up, you know you probably should be VOTING right now instead of waiting for this to load.
It's out all over the place, but since a lot of the blogs are going down due to extraordinarily heavy traffic, I'll post what I've seen throughout the afternoon. Again, I stress that exit polls are a flawed science, and read this disclaimer before you try and draw a lot of conclusions:
Slate and Kos have posted these numbers at 4 PM:
NV CO NC PA OH FL MI NM WI
Kerry 48 46 49 54 50 50 51 50 51
Bush 50 53 51 45 49 49 47 48 46
If they're correct, this election is about what we've thought all along -- Ohio and Florida. If Kerry wins one of two, he wins.
Kos and MyDD have great news leaked from CNN:
Ohio - African American precincts are performing at 106% what we expected, based on historical numbers. Hispanic precincts are at 144% what we expected. Precincts that went for Gore are turning out 8% higher then those that went Bush in 2000. Democratic base precincts are performing 15% higher than GOP base precincts.
Florida - Dem base precincts are performing 14% better than Bush base precincts. In precincts that went for Gore, they are doing 6% better than those that went for Bush. African American precincts at 109%, Hispanic precincts at 106%.Pennsylvania - African American precincts at 102% of expectations, Hispanics at 136% of expectations. The Gore precincts are doing 4 percent better than bush precincts.
Michigan - Democratic base precincts are 8% better than GOP base states. Gore precincts are 5% better than Bush.
I tend to think that applying actual turnout data to historical patterns is much more significant than exit polls. Seeing these turnout numbers in Democratic precincts gives me much more confidence than exit polls (which can be all all over the place). It just very well may be ACT and the Democratic 527s that will win this election for us.
Looking over at National Review's The Corner Blog - there's a good deal of exit polls leaking out. Speaking of the fickleness of exit polls -- they had Bush up by 8 in Ohio in the first batch of their exit polls, and then one came in with Kerry up 4.
Drudge also has exit polls that show Republicans doing well in Senate races:
Thune +4 (SD)
Castor +3 (FL)
Burr +6 (NC)
Bunning +6 (KT)
Coburn +6 (OK)
Demint +4 (SC)
Salazar +4 (CO)
Another bit of hard data that gives me comfort is the fact that in real numbers from Dixville Notch and Hart's Location in New Hampshire (that have voted and been counted), John Kerry outperformed Al Gore (from those locations in 2000). Matthew Gross analyses it. I had a similar thought this morning (although I didn't post it here) in my comment on Boi From Troy's post on the story.
Here's the trendlines (comparing Bush/Gore in 2000 vs. Bush/Kerry in 2004):
Location: 2000 (B/G) 2004
Dixville Notch, NH: 21/5 19/7
Hart's Location, NH: 17/13 15/15
So Bush's twenty vote margin of 38-18 in these two towns in 2000 was reduced to a twelve vote margin of 34-22. That's a seven point swing towards Kerry as Bush's percentage in the two towns has shrunk from 68% to 61% from 2000 to 2004.
Update: Via Atrios is Zogby's final prediction: Kerry 311, Bush 213
Update: Kos has the 6 PM numbers:
Kerry Bush
PA 53 46
FL 51 49
NC 48 52
OH 51 49
MO 46 54
AR 47 53
MI 51 47
NM 50 49
LA 43 56
CO 48 51
AZ 45 55
MN 54 44
WI 52 47
IA 49 49
:: Updated 3:30 pm ::
I'm running around on my bike to about 7 polling places every 2 hours to get vote totals in the campus precincts. I've just got back from a break (class) for the first shift and have th folllowing to report.
Precinct (latest cumulative vote)
147 (293)
148 (527) Surging
261 (193)
265 (230) There were 751 early votes cast in #265.
266 (101)
274 (430)
277 (143)
This is good news. The first two are on campus, more Democratic as far as I'm concerned. Most of the rest are West Campus, (more frats and such) and I'm willing to bet they are low because college students don't wake up early and vote. They will do it after class or later in the day coming home. Pct. 274 includes a number of liberal homeowners that are not college students so high turnout there is expected and a good thing!
I'll try to update this post as I see it today.
Things are staying consistent, most polls saw about the same number of votes between 7 and 10 as between 10 and 1, some with a slight uptick, some with a slight downtick. One typical precinct in Brazos County near A&M (Chet Edwards land) had 979 votes in 6 hours. That bodes very well for that particular congressman.
If the trends hold, I suspect we'll have about 60% turnout- maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. Our numbers in exit polls are looking good, but they can't be trusted 100%. The good news is that different outfits are finding the same people winning in the same states. I don't want to spill the beans (just go vote, you'll find out who won later) but Kerry is looking good. I am cautiously optimistic.
No more predictions, I don't want to jinx things.
If you have young ones (or if you are a young one), why not print off this coloring-book-style Election Night map?
Teach civics with a box of crayons!
Of course, I still have the bottle of Jack I bought ... in a gas station!... in Las Cruces. And I intend to mix it up with soda and take a sip of Jack'n'Coke every time Kerry wins a state tonight.
(Don't do that with the kids)
Kerry is surging in both IEM and TradeSports.
Still, I'd note that you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run...
Furthermore, don't count your votes while yer sittin' at the table, there'll be time to count votes when the votin's done.
Looking Good... I got them about 30 minutes ago with instructions not to post, but Kos has them up now, so it's good to see. I've been pretty relaxed the past several days (last week I was pretty anxious about the election). I'm confident. We will win. Say President Kerry. Start practicing.
Update: Grits for Breakfast has an election day poem for us.
Update: Jim asks me to update this thread with this important disclaimer. Exit polls are sometimes right and sometimes worthless. In 2000 they gave Bush an early lead, in 2002 they were all over the place, but in the 2004 primaries they were often relatively close.
Update: I'm getting more exit poll numbers on some non-swing states now -- no big surprises in any of them.
I was just over at the Kerry-Edwards Texas HQ and saw some of the numbers coming in from around the state.
East Texas is a little bit slow and some stories have started to trickle in that the Tyler newspaper printed the wrong addresses for several polling places, all in Democratic precincts. Things should pickup as the day goes on, but the rain isn't too promising.
Houston is doing really well with some boxes with over 300 voters at 10 AM. Assuming that the average box gets about 900 voters and there are about 800+ precincts, that equals about 720,000 votes citywide. Plus the 419,000 or so early votes, that would be a 58.5% turnout. With that we could carry Vo and maybe even Dougherty. A little more would be nice, so let's hope I'm underguessing it.
Dallas I haven't seen numbers on. If you have info, let me know.
Bexar county is mixed- northside is supposedly doing really well and the numbers looked solid. Southside I haven't heard about but overall I suspect we might see over 60% turnout.
The K-E people are stoked, but they have a pretty big self-delusional streak. Several of them seriously believe Kerry will win Texas, which is unlikely at best. I suspect that between Harris (right at or maybe under 60%), Travis (perhaps as much as 70%), Bexar (just over 60%) and Dallas (???) counties along with rural, suburban and South Texas boxes we could see over 60% turnout statewide.
I'll post stuff as I know it- get out and vote!
One of the occupational hazards of canvassing is the temptation to do silly things, like jump off of a small (3 or 4 foot) wall and on to a sidewalk below. I tried doing this Saturday night, and ended up losing balance, bouncing and spinning off the sidewalk, and into the road. With a scraped palm and a bruised shin. But I'll probably live.
At least I didn't rip a big hole in my pants doing a cartwheel, unlike a certain co-blogger...
Remember, Election Day is supposed to be cheery. Be careful. You don't want to be waiting in line at the Emergency Room when you could be waiting in line at a polling place.
Oh yeah, and I second everything Byron said about New Mexico.
If you live in Travis County, it's easy. If you've misplaced your voter registration card, find out your precinct here.
To find out where your precinct votes click here.
It's pretty simple. I've already told three people where to vote today that have randomly called me, because they know I'm a political dork. One of my friends from Houston called in sick to work, and is driving to Austin today to vote after being turned away from his polling location in Houston (he thought that he had changed his registration, but the Harris County people didn't have a record of it). This guy isn't very politically involved, but there was no question that he would drive to Austin to cast his vote -- even though we're not a swing state, and he's not even in a swing district. All over, I'm reading stories of people who are dedicated to voting no matter what. That's a great thing for democracy.
Another friend of mine lives in Mark Strama's district, and I told him where his voting location is. I'm begining to think that I can run a pretty effective GOTV opperation with my cell phone and an Internet connection with AOL instant messenger.
I didn't have the chance to post on the New Mexico trip yesterday, but I did want to post on my thoughts on a few things.
We arrived at the Doña Ana County Democratic Party office on Saturday morning. After a quick training, we were sent out with swing canvass lists of undecided and new voters. Most of us didn't believe that such voters existed, but sure enough there were. Most of us on the trip can point to at least a few voters where we believe that our two or three minute conversation made the difference between them remaining undecided or not voting, and voting for John Kerry. I had two specific encounters where I feel like I made a difference with an individual voter.
One young woman was concerned about health care, especially for her parents. They couldn't afford many of the prescriptions that they needed and she wanted to know what the candidates would do about that. Easy. Millions of people have lose health care under President Bush, and he has no plan. John Kerry, on the other hand, wants to give you and your family the option to buy into the same health care program that senators and congressmen give themselves. John Kerry had prostate cancer last year and he got great health care and treatment, because senators give themselves great health care. He wants your family to have the same. Young woman: "That sounds really good. I think I'll vote for change with John Kerry again". She was a little bit confused, but she told me she would vote early later in the day.
Voter #2 was a 19 year old guy concerned about Iraq. He wanted to know if Kerry would start bringing our troops home. I told him that Kerry would be able to get a fresh start with the rest of the world, and that he would do a much better job of bringing other countries into the fight to defend Iraq. Under Bush, America has paid 90% of the costs and 90% of the casualties in Iraq. John Kerry wants to bring other countries into Iraq and lessen the burden on America. Instead of giving Bush's oil buddies and Haliburton all those contracts and special deals that Bush has done, Kerry will give other nations a stake in Iraq. Voter: "Ok, I think I'll vote for Kerry on election day". He was an undecided / non-voter three minutes earlier, and today I think he's voting for John Kerry.
These were the "hard to reach" voters that we were told that in any other year they would be ignored because there simply wasn't the time, money or manpower. This year these folks were being canvassed two and three times -- and that's just by the Kerry campaign. We ran into dozens of ACT, ACORN and NAACP people while we were out canvassing. We ran into a few church groups and Bush / Cheney campaign people, but Democratic ground organizers far outnumbered Republican ground folks in Las Cruces.
On Sunday volunteers were flooding out the doors. Saturday was the last day of the swing canvass, and Sunday was the begining of the 72 hour rush to the finish. There were a couple of hundred people signed up to volunteer in their office on Sunday, and they showed up. Dozens of people were sticking precinct voting location information on generic Kerry / Edwards doorhangers that were probably put out last night. Dozens were phone banking, and several of us were sent out to election day voting locations to put up Kerry / Edwards signs everywhere we could imagine. Others in our group went out with 4"X8" Kerry / Edwards signs at busy intersections for visibility. Literally, the office was so overflowing that dozens of teams were sent out for visibility. As we left Las Cruces we probably passed at least five or six Kerry visibility teams on Main street and the road back to I-10.
Does this mean that Kerry will win New Mexico, or any other swing state for that matter? No. But it does mean that I can say from first hand experience that our ground game is absolutely phenomenal. It's by far the best I've ever seen. I know the Republicans probably have the best field organization that they've ever had, but Democrats have the best field organization ever in American history.
This is a modified version of David Leip's Election Night Timeline, with the states colored for the time-bloc when the "last" polls in that state close. For example, Texas is in the 8 p.m. block because polls do not close in El Paso until 7 Mountain Time. Also the times have been adjusted to Central Time for you Texas poll watchers.
I also added how many electoral votes are contained in each time block. In theory, we could know who won as early as 7 p.m. Central Time.
Click the map for an enlarged pop-up.
In the comments, I am informed that CNN has a similar and slightly different (probably more accurate) map. But mine has prettier colors!
Garance Franke-Ruta says that the Bush campaign is experiencing a Howard Dean-like flame-out in Iowa.
Oh, the sweet irony.
Via Atrios, we find that Giblets is likely to win in an unexpected landslide today.
Since polls would never lie, I therefore have to agree with the Fafbloggers. Giblets will win every state but acursed Wyoming:
In two days Giblets will not just be your supreme leader, commander, and Giblets. He will be your constitutionally-mandated supreme leader, commander, and Giblets. In this Giblets is unstoppable! In fact Gibletsian state-by-state projections by Giblets's polling firm, Gibletsian Vision (G), show Giblets winning by a landslide - 535 to 3! (Wyoming will go to Bush. Damn you to hell, Wyoming. Damn you to hell.)
Gibletsian partisans may already begin prematurely celebrating Giblets's victory! Giblets has already commissioned a 500 foot tall sculpture of himself on horseback trampling his foes, to be entitled Triumphe d'Gibletse! On January 20th Giblets will spend all of his inauguration ceremony eating an enormous pile of gold!
But if - as some scurrilous rumors and half-mad acid-eating anti-Giblets propagandists have suggested - Giblets loses the election to John Kerry, it will be clear why. It will be because of the bias of the liberal media.
The liberal media, who again and again painted John Kerry as a weak-willed pandering flip-flopper, knowing that Americans appreciate the supple pliabilty of a flip-flopper's ever-shifting positions over the hard resolve of Giblets! The liberal media, who represented Kerry's every position as an incoherent one knowing full well that Americans would be helplessly seduced by a convoluted, byzantine rambler instead of a straight-shooter like Giblets! The liberal media, who entertained the notion that John Kerry was a traitor to his country who had deliberately wounded himself to get out of Vietnam and besmirched the reputation of his fellow veterans, knowing that Americans love a quick-witted spineless coward over a heroic anti-terror crusader like Giblets!
It's Election Day, and we're seeing some heavy rainfall here in the Houston area this morning. According to the Weather Channel, the same system will dump rain on battleground states Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, and Arkansas today.
The wet forecast for Ohio worries me somewhat, since it will probably depress turnout, although the hourly forecast suggests that it will begin to clear up by about 4 p.m. or so.
Taegan Goddard says it'll rain in the (Republican) Florida panhandle, but the rest of the state should be dry.
Here -- Support Texas Tuesdays by voting for our candidates!!!
Watch C-SPAN. One idiot is introducing another in Dallas, Texas tonight...
Update: Sessions's only hope is that Bush pulls him across the finish line tomorrow night. Bush just said how important it is to send Sessions (who is sitting next to the Wohlgemonster and Gohmert) back to Washington -- and Rick Perry (how stupid is too stupid?), David Dewhurst, Tom Craddick and all of them are at the Bush rally in Dallas tonight -- so send them all a message tomorrow.
"He's from Massachusetts, and I'm from Texas" - why does President Bush continue to divide Americans by geography? I'm a native Texan, and I proudly voted for the junior senator from Massachusetts for President.
Reading across the blogs today, there have been some interesting stories and report, official and personal, that talk about the large number of voters and the early voters. Some of that talk has been about Democrats being motivated to go early.
In our Liberal Arts Honors class of about 150 students, a place crawling with Liberals politically, the question was asked today, who has already voted? Very quickly and with amazing vigor, over 75% of the hands shot up in the room. As everyone suddenly took a breath in shock... wow.
I am willing to bet that in the on campus precincts, Kerry wins with between 63% - 68% of the vote. I'm also going to bet that there will be a couple of percentage points, i.e. more than 1% for Libertarian Badnarik. And of course, there will be some Nader and Cobb write-in votes, but I really don't feel those will amount to even a couple hundred votes.
By the way, if you live in precincts 147 or 148, meaning you live anywhere actually on the UT campus including Dobie or the Villas- you will VOTE TUESDAY at JESTER on the first floor from 7 am to 7 pm.
If you don't know where to vote or what precinct you are in, it's on your blue registration card OR you can search for your registration here and when you find yourself, it will list the precinct and location of voting.
If you already know your precint here in Travis, then go here to look it up with a handy map generator.
Quick Snap for UT students living just West and North of Campus.
Precincts
261 Pearl Street Co-op
265 St. Austin Catholic Church (on Guadalupe)
266 Lamar Senior Activity Center
274 First English Lutheran Church
277 Taos Co-op (on Guadalupe)
Vote Democratic. Vote for Libertarians against Republicans where there is no Democrat. Vote FOR the Capitol Metro Transportation Plan at the very end of the ballot, even if you vote straight ticket.
Go early as you can as the lines for student precincts will start swelling around 10-11 a.m. through lunch, and then after people finish their classes. Don't worry, if you are in line to vote even at 7 p.m. they must let you vote.
VOTE and then GOTV.
One GOP congressman in a non-swing state gets a last minute campaign rally with President Bush. Who is it?
Pete Sessions:
President Bush is coming to Dallas!!!
President Bush will be here for a late-night rally on his way to Crawford, where he will vote on Election Day.
Monday, November 1st
10pm
Southern Methodist University
Moody Coliseum
6024 Airline Drive
Dallas, Texas
I hope that Dallas Democrats will be outside with their Frost signs -- Bush would not be wasting election eve in Dallas if this race were anything but a dead heat. Frost can squeak this out, but only if all you guys in Dallas work your butts off to get out the vote tomorrow.
More at MyDD.
Update: Ok, comments say no Frost signs. The people on the ground in Dallas probably know better than I do, so listen to what the Frost folks are saying.
It is the day before election day and back hom in my native land, Fredericksburg, in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, there is a local issue driving turnout. Enabled by last year's series of Constitutional Amendments, counties and localities have the ability to enact Tax Freezes for those 65+ and the elderly.
From the Standard-Radio Post
Both the city and county property tax issues will determine if ad valorem taxes on residential homesteads here should be frozen at current levels for those 65 years of age and older and for those who are disabled.
The way for those two votes was paved during September 2003 statewide constitutional amendment balloting that allowed local governing entities to provide for such property tax freezes.
But when neither city nor county officials here chose to voluntarily implement permanent property tax freezes earlier this year, a group of local citizens circulated petitions in an effort to pressure city and county governing officials here to freeze property taxes.
With that, both officials of the City of Fredericksburg and the County of Gillespie decided to let all eligible voters within their voting constituencies decide the ad valorem issue on residential homesteads by scheduling city and county elections to run simultaneously with the Nov. 2 general election.
Turnout has been through the roof as well, though the clerk comments later in the story how it's been happening in other area communities that don't have the property tax freeze on the ballot.
At last count yesterday, a record early vote count of 4,910, ballots had been submitted in the county commissioner courtroom at the county courthouse for the combined general election and County of Gillespie property tax freeze election.
That total easily tops the previous high of 4,320 early ballots submitted here in the November 2000 presidential election.
Gillespie County has 16,486 registered voters as of this month. Judging from County Trends I would imagine a turnout in the high 60s, possibly low seventies. Unline Travis County where Early/Election voting is now split more or less 50/50, back home they slowly trending that way but are closer to the 40/60 range.
As to the actual issue at hand. It sounds like it would be just a great measure to vote for. Who's against seniors and the disabled? But that's not what the election is about. It's about the tax base and who pays their fair share for services.
There have been meetings about it and my father was quoted in that story. (He's in the picture too, second balding man from the left in the blue shirt.
Tom Musselman, a former Fredericksburg business man who now teaches school here, said he felt that a tax freeze is not good public policy.
"The tax base needs to be as broad as possible for all taxpayers," he said. "To me, this election is not just about high taxes; it is about who should share in the responsibility to pay the taxes that provide all citizens with services. This election is as much about social obligations as it is about property tax relief."
Musselman added that he does not think it fair to shift the tax burden from one segment of the local population to another.
"All citizens, including seniors who will be exempt from future tax increases, use city and county services that are paid for with property taxes," he said. "Cutting those services will reduce the quality of life that we enjoy in our community."
This has also put local Republican office holders (they hold all of them) in an interesting bind because as government officials, they know that cutting one area of taxes in a budget that is for the most part trim, means they will have to raise them somewhere else.
City Manager Gary Neffendorf noted that a property tax freeze would provide a budget shortfall to the city of around $15,000 the first year, followed by $30,000 the second year and $45,000 the third year before eventually reaching an estimated $700,000 shortfall in 10 years.
The Chamber of Commerce folks, the Republican Main Street Business folk, voted to oppose the measure, much to the consternation of other local pols. From the San Antonio Express News
But they're clearly concerned by appraisal district forecasts that the city and county will lose $3.3 million and $8.8 million in tax revenue from seniors by 2015, respectively, if the freezes pass.
The Gillespie County Economic Development Commission — made up of appointees of the city, county and chamber of commerce — voted this month to oppose the referendums.
"I understand that some can't afford tax increases, but there could be separate relief for those in danger of losing property," said Tony Klein, 55, panel chairman.
And one other thing, Gillespie Seniors ain't poor. Those who believe that the majority of our seniors are financially destitute need only to look at the facts. Gillespie County ranks 35th out of 3,140 counties nationwide (and #1 in the state) in average dividend income. It ranks 21st nationally (and 3rd in the state) in average interest income. (you can verify this info here ) We are not a poor county, and have not been for many years.
My father's full letter of opposition is in the extended entry. For those in Gillespie County and similiar counties with this on the ballot, VOTE NO on the Tax Freeze.
I have been a resident of Fredericksburg for 32 years. I am 53 years old, and teach social studies (Economics, AP U.S. History, and AP U.S. Government and Politics) at Fredericksburg High School. I have been a teacher for 13 years and am in my 11th year at FHS. I have paid property taxes to the county since 1978, and to the city since 2000. Prior to my teaching career, I was the general manager of two restaurants in Fredericksburg from 1976 to 1989 and have been a keen observer of our town’s growth.
I will be voting AGAINST the tax freeze for both Gillespie County, and the city of Fredericksburg. I think the tax freeze is not good public policy. I feel that the tax base needs to be as broad as possible in order to keep taxes as low, and as equitable as possible for all taxpayers. To me, this election is not just about high taxes, it is about who should share in the responsibility to pay the taxes that provide all citizens with services. This election is as much about social obligations as it is about property tax relief.
I realize that seniors will continue to pay taxes, but at a frozen rate. I feel it is not fair to shift the tax burden from one segment of our population to another. As our population grows (and I fully expect it will), demand for city and county services will continue to increase in the future. As a preferred retirement destination, our over-65 population will increase.
All citizens, including seniors who will be exempt from future tax increases, use city and county services, for example fire and police protection, streets and roads, and EMS services that are paid for with property taxes. Cutting these services will reduce the quality of life that we enjoy in our community.
- A tax freeze for seniors will shift the tax burden to everyone else. This will raise rents, costs to businesses, and the costs of goods and services to everyone.
- Those seniors living in assisted living facilities and government subsidized senior housing will not benefit from this tax freeze and could see their costs increase as a result of a tax freeze for other seniors.
- People whose taxes are frozen can vote for county and city programs and services that will result in higher cost for others.
- School taxes represent the bulk of a person’s tax bill. These taxes are already frozen for seniors over 65.
Wealth in Gillespie County and Fredericksburg has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. (Check out the money on deposit in local banks.) The 1970s and 1980s saw an influx of “newcomers” (or auslanders, as the local Germans call them). These people invested their wealth in developing business, creating jobs and helping to produce the atmosphere that has made Fredericksburg such a big tourist draw. These civic-minded people helped establish our notable Hill Country Memorial Hospital, and Admiral Nimitz Museum. These people became an integral part of the community.
However, in the past ten years, many people have moved here only to retire, not to invest. They have built gated communities and exclusive subdivisions with quarter-million dollar plus homes. Teachers, nurses, policemen, workers at Wal-Mart and waiters in restaurants are the people who will be shouldering the burden of any additional taxes generated because of an over-65 tax freeze.
Those who believe that the majority of our seniors are financially destitute need only to look at the facts. Gillespie County ranks 35th out of 3,140 counties nationwide (and #1 in the state) in average dividend income. It ranks 21st nationally (and 3rd in the state) in average interest income. (you can verify this info at http://trac.sys.edu/tracirs/ ) We are not a poor county, and have not been for many years.
I believe passage of the tax freeze would be detrimental to our community. In an era when we should strive for more cooperation to solve problems, the tax freeze would be divisive. If the tax freeze passes, I feel it would be bad for business. I feel it would result in higher costs, and fewer jobs. I feel that the young will not stay in the area, nor seek to return to Fredericksburg later in life. I believe the tax freeze would fundamentally change our community.
It's been roughly 72 hours since checking my email, which means I have about 250 in my BOR and UT accounts. I'm catching up on a weekend of bloglines and CNN to figure out where everything stands. Overall, I'm much more confident than I was last week about the presidential race, and I ought to be home the rest of the day, so by this evening (unless I decide to take a nap), I'll probably have a flurry of posts (including a recap of my New Mexico trip).
I guess it's only fitting that since our readers had to view crimson and cream for three days after OU beat Texas, that students at OU get to read about burnt orange in their student newspaper today.
I got back to my apartment at 3 AM after a long trip back from Las Cruces, NM. We had a close call with a deer on Highway 290, and with a rabbit on the offramp to a rest stop on I-10, but we and (hopefully) the rabbit survived. I was able to swerve to miss the deer, and I think the rabbit made it across the road before the van got there, but I'm not entirely sure.
As for New Mexico -- I'll have a lot to say after I get some sleep, clean and take back our vans, and take my exam tomorrow (Monday). But, for now, I'll keep things brief. The field organization in Las Cruces (and I assume nationally) is just phenominal - something I can now say from first hand experience. While we canvassed on Saturday, we ran into dozens of people from ACT, the NAACP, ACORN as well as with the New Mexico Democratic Coordinated Campaign (where we were volunteering) doing about every kind of GOTV work imaginable. Voters and potential voters that were never touched in previous elections have received multiple phone calls and door knocks this year. I also had the chance to meet that elusive undecided voter, and I'm confident that I swinged a few undecideds and/or non-voters over to the Kerry side. I'll elaborate more later. I'm going to bed now, but I can at least go to bed with the confidence that there is abso-fucking-lutely no way that we lose this election on the ground. In 48 hours, John Kerry will be President-Elect. You can write it down.
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