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Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 00:20 PM CDT
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( - promoted by Matt Glazer)
Over the past ten weeks, the Texas Democratic Party promoted an unprecedented "Meet the Statewides" campaign on our website. Each week, we promoted content for our statewide candidates on our website, Facebook, and Twitter pages. We asked candidates to submit a video, write an original op-ed, and provide biographical information. We at the TDP also penned an issue piece, sent out all material to our e-mail list, and created duplicative Spanish-language pages for each candidate. Yesterday, we began looking back at our series by looking at our statewide judicial candidates. Read our post from yesterday ("Our "Meet the Statewides" Series: Texas Supreme Court & Court of Criminal Appeals Candidates") to read about Texas Supreme Court Candidates Jim Sharp, Blake Bailey, and Bill Moody, as well as Court of Criminal Appeals candidate Keith Hampton. Today, we wanted to focus on our next batch of statewide candidates: Barbara Ann Radnofsky for Texas Attorney General 
Practicing law on both sides of the docket, Barbara Ann Radnofsky is a mother, wife, teacher, and mediator. Texas educated, she’s a magna cum laude graduate from the University of Houston and an honors graduate from University of Texas Law School. In 2006, after 27 years of law practice, Barbara Ann left Vinson & Elkins as Head of the Alternate Dispute Resolution Section to become the first woman in history to serve as the Texas Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. She was the first woman at Vinson & Elkins to have children as an associate and attain partnership. The Texas Attorney General picks his battles. It was a Texas Attorney General opinion which enabled Tom DeLay’s mid decade redistricting. To the great credit of the Texas Rangers in 2006, an election year, it was a Ranger who brought concrete evidence of sexual and physical abuse at the Texas Youth Commission to the Texas Attorney General. The Attorney General turned his back. Instead, he used Attorney General resources to target elderly and minority Democrats assisting the homebound to cast their mail in ballots. Attorney General Abbott squandered seven figures of discretionary funds, finding no organized widespread fraud or voter impersonation. Reports of investigators spying on an elderly woman in her bathroom and knocking on her door amid selective prosecutions of Democratic activists convey a political purpose: voter intimidation. In the wake of the recent British Petroleum (BP) Gulf oil spill, Abbott didn’t even attempt to act like the state’s chief law enforcement officer. Despite BP’s horrific safety record, Abbott made excuses for the oil company rather than insisting that its plans and actions be scrutinized. Instead, Abbott said on May 3rd: “we’re seeing BP take all the right actions and make all the right comments.” (Source: KXAN-TV). Click on the "There's More" button below to read about Hector Uribe, Hank Gilbert, and Jeff Weems... |
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Hector Uribe for Texas Land Commissioner 
Uribe has extensive experience in legislative and governmental advocacy having served almost a decade in the Texas Senate and 3 years in the Texas House. Equal educational opportunity, economic development, and job creation were the hallmarks of Uribe’s tenure as a senator. He authored the bill to merge Pan American University into the UT System providing graduate programs to previously underserved college students in the Rio Grande Valley and the border, and the Texas Enterprise Zone Act designed to create new businesses and jobs in economically depressed areas.
With over 20 million acres of state-owned land, much of it on the windy Gulf coast and in windy and sunny West Texas, Texas government has “skin in the game,” so we have a big role to play. We could be an economically viable catalyst in putting private industry together with innovative research. With incentives in place encouraging the use of green power, we could become a key part of growing the market for these new products. And with the clout of our millions of acres of public lands, we could supply that emerging market. The Christmas Mountains, in the heart of the Big Bend region of Texas, were given to the state in 1991. They should have been transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) and been made part of Big Bend National Park a long time ago. However, Republican Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has prevented that from happening, insisting that he wants to sell the Mountains to a private entity.
Hank Gilbert for Texas Agriculture Commissioner 
Hank served as Director of the Texas Simmental/Simbrah Association and is the immediate past President of Walnut Grove Water Supply, a 2,500 member-owned cooperative. As its President, he cut operational expenses and reduced members’ water rates by 35%, while still making necessary improvements to the system. He also currently serves as President of the Pineywoods Sub-regional Planning Commission, a state-recognized 391-member commission formed to force state agencies, such as the Texas Department of Transportation, and federal agencies, like the EPA, to coordinate with local entities on projects that could have an adverse effect on their communities. Every year, hundreds of thousands—if not millions–of bushels of fruits and vegetables are imported into Texas from Latin and South America and other states. This produce goes directly to your local supermarket, usually with little or no inspection. Produce from other countries that’s been sprayed with pesticides banned in the United States (because they cause cancer) and unclean produce that could contain salmonella or other dangerous bacteria make their way from outside of Texas to your dinner table—or your child’s lunchbox—with no official inspection from the Texas Department of Agriculture. Republican Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples is a career politician whose personal political ambition has trumped the needs of Texas’ farmers and families. By using his position as Agriculture Commissioner as a stepping stone for future office, Staples has thoroughly neglected the critically important task of his job: sustaining and improving Texas’ farms and ensuring policies set by the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) help move Texas forward. Jeff Weems for Texas Railroad Commissioner 
Upon graduating, Jeff began working for Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & LaBoon, a premier Texas firm. Jeff’s practice focused almost exclusively on energy litigation. A few years after becoming a partner at what was by then known as Locke Liddell & Sapp, Jeff joined Harrison Bettis in 2000 as a partner, (now Harrison, Bettis, Staff, McFarland & Weems, L.L.P.) where he remains today. Jeff’s practice, which involves the representation of operating companies, energy service companies, royalty and land owners, has grown more successful each year. Two of the three current Commissioners, Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams, have been running for U.S. Senate for well over a year and will continue to do so until the 2012 election. This has been disastrous for the Railroad Commission because, while they campaigned for other offices and a potential move up the political ladder, critically important matters went unaddressed. Things are so bad that the Texas Sunset Commission is looking into cutting back the Railroad Commission’s authority because the current commissioners are distracted. Jeff will work hard as a Railroad Commissioner – in fact, he has publicly averred he will never run for another political office. |
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