Burnt Orange Report

I'm a Democrat living in Terry Keel's district. I would love to see a Democratic challenger go up against Keel, but realistically I don't give that challenger much of a chance. At least Rep. Keel has been somewhat moderate on gay issues. He was one of the few Republican reps to vote against Talton's nasty gay foster parent ban, and in 2001, Keel voted in committee to repeal 21.06, the state's (now unconstitutional) "homosexual conduct" law.

Oh, I don't have any delusions about the difficulting in knocking him off.

Those votes may also have been because there was some 'family' in the Keel family. But still, there are pleny of non-gay related votes that would be reason enough to run against him.

The GLBT community raised over $30K for Kelly White last year. It helped that she had some personal / family links to the GLBT community, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the GLBT community raise a similar amount or more for a 2006 challenge to Baxter.

As for Keel, John Sharp and Kirk Watson carried his district in 2002. I don't know the 2004 numbers, but considering the margin Kerry and other Dems won countywide, I'm sure that margin was relatively close. That district is moderate, as many south Austin Dem lean precincts were added in redistricting to make make 48 more Republican (and Ann Kitchen vulnerable). Also much of that district includes the Constable precinct where Democrat Richard McCain upset Terry Keel's brother, Thorton Keel in a Dem pickup last year (Terry Keel's other brother was defeated for judge as well).

Keel is somewhat entrenched in his seat, and is slightly more moderate than Stick and Baxter. He also has better name i.d. as former sheriff. He will be tough to beat, but in order to win back the Texas House (eventually), his district is definitely among the seats that we will need to pick up.

Keel also for very petty reasons killed the judicial payraise bill this session, which had tremendous bipartisan support. He killed it because the Senate wouldn't pass a law LOWERING the qualification standards for lawyers to be appointed to capital cases. I guess Texas has a profound problem that lawyers appointed to death penalty cases are TOO qualified.

This is a guy who when he was Sheriff cost the County serious $$$$ for all the civil rights violations he comitted. The Sheriff's office was getting sued left and right for all the shennanigans he was pulling. Before that as a prosecutor, he would argue to the jury that they infer guilt from the Defendant's refusal to testify, which is a BIG NO NO that every kid who has graudated from 8th grade civics knows.

Terry Keel is a class A clown and needs to be defeated.

Hugh Brady is far more qualified than Andy Brown and has a better chance of winning the general. Brown should step aside for the good of District 48.

I would disagree with you, austinite. Andy Brown has already, if you look at his press release from the Quorum Report, put together a strong group of supporters. He is the best bet to beat Baxter.

Well, let's do a side-by-side comparison, David:

Andy Brown was a low-level staffer for Pete Laney and his press release is riddled with grammatical errors.

Hugh Brady has literally written the book on Texas House practices and has been working in the legislature for over a decade.

Who's most qualified to represent District 48?

The point you made that I disagreed with was when you said "Brown should step aside for the good of District 48."

The best thing for District 48 will be Todd Baxter losing. Brown is the best one to do that.

Andy Brown already has the support of many Democratic activists in Austin. Brown will win the primary, if there is one that is.