July 25, 2005
Local Post Becomes Statewide Story
By Phillip Martin
This past Saturday, the Fort-Worth Star Telegram picked up the story about how the people in Rep. Joe Moreno's district have gone without representation for these two special sessions. The story, which echoes parts of a post I had previously written, leads with a strong condemnation of Perry's actions:
Democrats and voting-rights advocates are outraged that Gov. Rick Perry set a November election to replace late state Rep. Joe Moreno, leaving his heavily Hispanic Houston district without representation during special sessions on school finance.
"What this is doing is disenfranchising all those people and making them second-class citizens while one of the most important debates facing the state is going on in Austin," said Ana Yanez Correa, who lobbies the Legislature on behalf of Hispanic causes.
I know Governor Perry is no longer legally responsible to order an expedited election, but for Perry and the GOP to champion morality one moment and boast that they can barely crawl over the minimum requirements of the law the next is flat out wrong. The votes on the tax and education bill are within a single vote, and it's tough to fathom that Perry would have acted the same if the district in question voted a different way.
Posted by Phillip Martin at July 25, 2005 04:34 PM
| TrackBack
Phillip --
Congrats on getting this story out in the first place.
The people of Joe's district absolutely deserve representation and the guv ought to be ashamed for keeping them disenfranchised.
This sounds like a great issue. Anyone else talking about it? Texas Democratic Party? Texas Young Democrats? People who don't hate Houston hispanics?
If someone beats Rick Perry, I nominate the entire voting populous of HD 143 to be the first to say "Adios, Mofo." They will actually mean it.
The Texas Democratic Party's strategist is the one who pushed this story into the mainstream newspapers. This is just the latest example of what TDP does that so few of the compaliners seem to understand.
I'm glad this story made the mainstream press, but living in Houston and close to Joe's old district, I've heard nothing about it. No local newspaper, television, or radio coverage. On the party's website, only a link to the story, not a press release from TDP, exist.
As for complainers, I personally invite Soledad to join my campaign for our blockwalking later this month. Peter Brown will be replacing a Republican on Houston's City Council, so I hope that motivates you. Go to www.peterbrownforcouncil.org to sign up. Otherwise, please consider making a contribution so I can help more people grow our grassroots base here in Houston.
I don't mean to 'complain,' but I expect more from my party and will damn sure do my part.
