Burnt Orange Report


News, Politics, and Fun From Deep in the Heart of Texas






Ad Policies



Support the TDP!



Get Firefox!


September 07, 2005

Thank You, Senator Barrientos

By Phillip Martin

The Statesman has a good article, but here's my own:

Though I know it's chic to follow Texas Monthly's lead and pretend like Sen. Barrientos never did much of anything, I find it short-sighted and insulting to attempt and diminish someone who has served in the Texas Legislature since 1975 and worked tirelessly for his constituents to a single, snarky put-down. He's done a tremendous amount for Austin and the state, from giving thousands of dollars of scholarships every year to Hispanic high school students in his district to refusing to cave on the issues that matter most (something some of our other Democratic Senators were continually unable to do).

Though his successes working with public education, seniors, and state employees are numerous, I wanted to tell the story of how Sen. Barrientos actually helped launch my interest in covering politics:

Back in high school, I wanted to write an article about my school's high school dropout rate for our high school paper. My high school class had shrunk from 540 students to around 370, and I wantd to know why TEA said we only had a 2% dropout rate. Everyone I called in the capitol told me one place to go: Sen. Barrientos' office.

I met with his staff when I was a fledgling high school newspaper writer, and was treated like I wrote for the NY Times. They helped me out tremendously and taught me all about how terrible TEA's dropout system works. I ended up writing a front-page story that won an honorable mention in a statewide UIL-competition.

This was actually the first political reporting I ever did, and to this day, fixing the problems facing our state's education system remains the number one reason why I'm in politics at all. Had I not had as engaging and satisfying experience that first time, I may have never gotten interested in politics.

Therefore, I simply wanted to thank Sen. Barrientos for all the hard work he's done in the past years. He is about things that a lot of folks in politics don't pay as much attention to or really care about: honor, respect, and hard-work.

Thank you, Senator. You've had a great impact on my life, and I wish you nothing but the best with your retirement.

Posted by Phillip Martin at September 7, 2005 04:22 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Thank you for this, Phillip. My sentiments exactly. Gonzalo is one of the "good guys." I will miss him.

Posted by: Ken Molberg at September 7, 2005 07:28 PM

But...he and his notorious aide were SOBs when it came to environmental issues as he sat on the Naural Resources Committee, even when Dems had control of the Senate..

Posted by: Erin at September 8, 2005 12:02 AM

Let's also remember that when this state had almost NO Latino representation in any part of the state, Gonzo was an early leader of political rights and representation for Latinos. In fact, it was considered a blunder that George McGovern's staff didn't schedule a meeting with him when he came to Austin in 1972 because he was such an influential leader in the Latino community. The staffer who screwed up went on to bigger and better things--President Bill Clinton.

Sen. Barrientos is a good man and he'll be missed.

Posted by: Andrew Dobbs at September 8, 2005 09:51 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?






BOA.JPG


January 2006
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31        


About Us
About BOR
Advertising Policies

Karl-Thomas M. - Owner
Byron L. - Founder
Alex H. - Contact
Andrea M. - Contact
Andrew D. - Contact
Damon M. - Contact
Drew C. - Contact
Jim D. - Contact
John P. - Contact
Katie N. - Contact
Kirk M. - Contact
Matt H. - Contact
Phillip M. - Contact
Vince L. - Contact
Zach N. - Conact

Donate

Tip Jar!



Archives
Recent Entries
Categories
BOR Edu.
University of Texas
University Democrats

BOR News
The Daily Texan
The Statesman
The Chronicle

BOR Politics
DNC
DNC Blog: Kicking Ass
DSCC
DSCC Blog: From the Roots
DCCC
DCCC Blog: The Stakeholder
Texas Dems
Travis County Dems
Dallas Young Democrats

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett
State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos
State Rep. Dawnna Dukes
State Rep. Elliott Naishtat
State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez
State Rep. Mark Strama
Traffic Ratings
Alexa Rating
Marketleap
Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem
Technoranti Link Cosmos
Blogstreet Blogback
Polling
American Research Group
Annenberg Election Survey
Gallup
Polling Report
Rasmussen Reports
Survey USA
Zogby
Texas Stuff
A Little Pollyana
Austin Bloggers
D Magazine
DFW Bogs
DMN Blog
In the Pink Texas
Inside the Texas Capitol
The Lasso
Pol State TX Archives
Quorum Report Daily Buzz
George Strong Political Analysis
Texas Law Blog
Texas Monthly
Texas Observer
TX Dem Blogs
100 Monkeys Typing
Alandwilliams.com
Alt 7
Annatopia
Appalachia Alumni Association
Barefoot and Naked
BAN News
Betamax Guillotine
Blue Texas
Border Ass News
The Daily DeLay
The Daily Texican
DemLog
Dos Centavos
Drive Democracy Easter Lemming
Esoterically
Get Donkey
Greg's Opinion
Half the Sins of Mankind
Jim Hightower
Houtopia
Hugo Zoom
Latinos for Texas
Off the Kuff
Ones and Zeros
Panhandle Truth Squad
Aaron Peña's Blog
People's Republic of Seabrook
Pink Dome
The Red State
Rhetoric & Rhythm
Rio Grande Valley Politics
Save Texas Reps
Skeptical Notion
Something's Got to Break
Southpaw
Stout Dem Blog
The Scarlet Left
Tex Prodigy
ToT
View From the Left
Yellow Doggeral Democrat
TX GOP Blogs
Beldar Blog
Blogs of War
Boots and Sabers
Dallas Arena
Jessica's Well
Lone Star Times
Publius TX
Safety for Dummies
The Sake of Arguement
Slightly Rough
Daily Reads
&c.
ABC's The Note
Atrios
BOP News
Daily Kos
Media Matters
MyDD
NBC's First Read
Political State Report
Political Animal
Political Wire
Talking Points Memo
Wonkette
Matthew Yglesias
College Blogs
CDA Blog
Get More Ass (Brown)
Dem Apples (Harvard)
KU Dems
U-Delaware Dems
UNO Dems
Stanford Dems
GLBT Blogs
American Blog
BlogActive
Boi From Troy
Margaret Cho
Downtown Lad
Gay Patriot
Raw Story
Stonewall Dems
Andrew Sullivan
More Reads
Living Indefinitely
Blogroll Burnt Orange!
BOR Webrings
< ? Texas Blogs # >
<< ? austinbloggers # >>
« ? MT blog # »
« ? MT # »
« ? Verbosity # »
Election Returns
CNN 1998 Returns
CNN 2000 Returns
CNN 2002 Returns
CNN 2004 Returns

state elections 1992-2005

bexar county elections
collin county elections
dallas county elections
denton county elections
el paso county elections
fort bend county elections
galveston county elections
harris county elections
jefferson county elections
tarrant county elections
travis county elections


Texas Media
abilene
abilene reporter news

alpine
alpine avalanche

amarillo
amarillo globe news

austin
austin american statesman
austin chronicle
daily texan online
keye news (cbs)
kut (npr)
kvue news (abc)
kxan news (nbc)
news 8 austin

beaumont
beaumont enterprise

brownsville
brownsville herald

college station
the battalion (texas a&m)

corpus christi
corpus christi caller times
kris news (fox)
kztv news (cbs)

crawford
crawford lone star iconoclast

dallas-fort worth
dallas morning news
dallas observer
dallas voice
fort worth star-telegram
kdfw news (fox)
kera (npr)
ktvt news (cbs)
nbc5 news
wfaa news (abc)

del rio
del rio news herald

el paso
el paso times
kdbc news (cbs)
kfox news (fox)
ktsm (nbc)
kvia news (abc)

fredericksburg
standard-radio post

galveston
galveston county daily news

harlingen
valley morning star

houston
houston chronicle
houston press
khou news (cbs)
kprc news (nbc)
ktrk news (abc)

kerrville
kerrville daily times

laredo
laredo morning times

lockhart
lockhart post-register

lubbock
lubbock avalanche journal

lufkin
lufkin daily news

marshall
marshall news messenger

mcallen
the monitor

midland - odessa
midland reporter telegram
odessa american

san antonio
san antonio express-news

seguin
seguin gazette-enterprise

texarkana
texarkana gazette

tyler
tyler morning telegraph

victoria
victoria advocate

waco
kxxv news (abc)
kwtx news (cbs)
waco tribune-herald

weslaco
krgv news (nbc)

statewide
texas cable news
texas triangle


World News
ABC News
All Africa News
Arab News
Atlanta Constitution-Journal
News.com Australia
BBC News
Bloomberg
Boston Globe
CBS News
Chicago Tribune
Christian Science Monitor
CNN
Denver Post
FOX News
Google News
The Guardian
Inside China Today
International Herald Tribune
Japan Times
LA Times
Mexico Daily
Miami Herald
MSNBC
New Orleans Times-Picayune
New York Times
El Pais (Spanish)
Salon
San Francisco Chronicle
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Slate
Times of India
Toronto Star
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post



Powered by
Movable Type 3.2b1