Burnt Orange Report

Club for Growth, Club for Cuellar

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

So here are the facts.

Rep. Cuellar is an incumbent "Democratic" Congressman "representing" the 28th District of Texas. In 2004, he ousted then incumbent Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, who underestimated his opponent and lost. Rodriguez is back, challenging Rep. Cuellar in the March primary, the winner of which faces no opponent other than a Libertarian this November. Victor Morales is also running in the primary...the same Victor Morales who stated "I wouldn't run as a Democrat again" in 2002, after losing the Senate bid to Ron Kirk, and has a non-working website.

The Club for Growth up until now has only endorsed Republicans. And the first Democrat that the Club for Growth endorsed? Rep. Henry Cuellar.

The Club for Growth supports...

* Taxpayer Funding of Private Schools
* Opposition to Raising the Minimum Wage
* Eliminating Estate Taxes on Millionaires
* Passage of CAFTA

Democrat Henry Cuellar...

* Supported Vouchers in the Texas House
* Endorsed Bush over Gore in 2000
* Was Rick Perry's 1st Sec. of State appointment
(before Geoff Conner was on Perry's Scene)
* Voted for CAFTA
* Supported Republican Tax Packages and Immigration Reform

Now, to give credit, Cuellar did have this to say in reaction...

Cuellar's campaign said that the Club for Growth never contacted them before issuing the endorsement, and that the endorsement came "out of left field." Cuellar issued a statement: "I find that with any endorsement you get half of their friends and all of their enemies. The only endorsement that I am looking for is the endorsement of the voters in this district, and I am working hard everyday to earn it."

Yes, such a strong repudiation of the Club for Growth endorsement. Though that silence I can almost hear the sound of Republican money flowing into his campaign coffers.

Some anaylsis that has passed my way...

San Antonio Turnout Promises to be High, Favoring a Ciro victory.

The controversial recount that gave the race to his opponent in 2004 was decided by a mere 58 votes. In Bexar County alone, 84% of the votes casts were for Ciro. This year, hotly contested primaries in the county for State Senate and State Representative will significantly increase voter turnout in Ciro’s favor. With San Antonio representing roughly 30% of the vote, this year’s increased turnout in San Antonio will send Ciro back to Congress.

Henry Cuellar is faces Opposition at Home in Laredo…

The conservative city of Laredo delivered the election for Cuellar. Yet just 2 years later, several Laredo elected officials, including State Senator Judith Zaffirini, publicly opposed the re-election of Henry Cuellar and supported former primary candidate, State Representative Richard Raymond instead. While Raymond chose to opt-out of the race just days before the filing deadline, the wounds of political division in Laredo are both fresh and deep. Cuellar cannot count on his own home county to carry the district for him again, which is no surprise, since Cuellar neither lives nor works in the Congressional District he represents.

Corte on Vouchers

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

I havn't has as much fun reading new blogs in some time as I have the Larry for the Lege blog, which is the main arm of the Larry Stallings campaign for HD-122 until the campaign website gets up at larrystallings.com. An interesting piece in a post yesterday was why Rep. Frank Corte introduced a bill for vouchers at $6,000 a year.

Speaking of whom, our daughter asked me why he introduced a bill to give, specifically, $6,000.00 a year in school vouchers. She wondered where that specific amount came from, since it is generally more than our local districts spend per child anyway. I didn't know why, so she set out to find out where that specific amount came from. Why $6,000.00? Why not $7.000.00? Why not $4,368.00? Well, she called last night at about 10 PM with an answer. Evidently, Mr. Corte used an amount fairly familiar to him - the tuition, plus $100.00 (for uniforms?) at his own kids' school matches that proposed amount.

I, myself, was privately educated in parochial schools back in the '50's and '60's. Believe it or not, even back then, special tax breaks were beeing proposed in California where I was raised, to help parents whose kids went to private schools. My dad, although a staunch Irish Catholic, was against that. He said to me when I asked him why, "It is our choice, we pay for that choice. If we took money from the state, it would be taking money away from kids whose parents don't have a choice." My mother disagreed with him, but he was firm in his view. He was a product of public schools himself, and supported them, even though his own kids went to parochial schools. Why don't we think about the common good anymore, like my dad did?

I went to a private catholic school for 10 years and a public high school for 4. I appreciate my private education and the religious component to it. But is my experience in both of those areas that makes me strongly opposed to vouchers. I'll explore that more in depth as that debate comes back into discussion.

Stallings Not Stalling Around

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

I'm back in Austin after an enjoyable break off in Fredericksburg where I had Thanksgiving Day dinner at the DoubleJade, which served a Chinese, German, Mexican, American, (and seafood) buffet.

Didn't catch this last week, but according to Matt Glazer down in San Antonio, Larry Stallings isn't wasting time in getting organized in HD 122. Matt's got some more biographical info as well, part of which I've clipped here.

Larry is a 58 year old father and grandfather. He was born and raised in Amarillo and graduated from Tascosa High School in 1966. Larry joined the Marine Corps immediately after graduation and served a total of 30 years in various military components, 20 of them as an Army Medical Service Corps officer. Stallings completed a Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) degree, and a Master of Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) degree while on military duty.

He was awarded more than two dozen medals and citations, served on two combat deployments and was awarded a Bronze Star and Legion of Merit.

Also not to forget, Republican Representative Ray Allen up in Dallas (HD-106) is going into retirement, creating an open seat for which Katy Hubener will be running again. Huebner garnered 47.5% against Allen back in 2004 in her first bid for political office, and should make this one of the top House races in Texas. Kuff has some info on that race from back before the break.

Rep. Corte to be Challenged in SA

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

From Matt down in SA comes some more good news.

Larry Stallings announced tonight that he will be challenging Frank Corte in House District 122. The announcement came before Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee outlined their 50 state strategy at house parties across the country.

Stallings says he was inspired by Howard Dean and the idea that no race should go unchallenged. Not even an out of touch legislator who stalls and blocks education reform.

Corte has basically gone unchallenged since 1992 and has not faced a Democratic challenger since being first elected. There are countless reasons why this guy should be defeated, and Stallings says he is up for the challenge.

Stallings was in the military for 30 years and is currently a director at University Medical Center in north San Antonio. His background in the health care industry and military alone will make this an interesting race to watch.

Matt was originally going to explore going after this seat himself but is now working on other worthwhile projects with the end of No Nonsense campaign. I look forward to hearing about what's going on down in SA from him. This news also bodes well for John Courage since HD-122 sits partially under CD-21.

And speaking of San Antonio, the Jeffersonian has some comments on how local issues fared there as well which you may want to check out.

Saturday March

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Info on this march was passed on to me by Dave Collins, who is active in area veterans organizations. -kt

The last patrol 2005

March/walk for hospital

America' s last patrol, American legion, catholic war veterans, disabled American veterans, veterans of foreign wars, and Rio Grande valley citizens will march/walk from hidalgo county courthouse in Edinburg to the Alamo in San Antonio, for the purpose of bringing attention to the lack of medical facilities (hospital) for veterans in south Texas.

Whereas veterans in this area number around 60,000 and about 40,000 veterans residing in Mexico, plus our winter visitors surely exceed the 100,000 mark. The sole inpatient clinic in the Rio Grande valley (an 8-county area) has limited hours of operation and must refer patients to other facilities for tests or treatments. The nearest veterans hospital is more than 200 miles away in san Antonio (a 4 to 5 hour drive).

In may of 2004 the dept. Of veterans affairs acknowledged the need for improved and expanded medical facilities for the Rio Grande valley. The veterans of south Texas have gone too long without proper medical facilities.

March/walk begins Nov. 5, 2005
At 8am
At the co. Courthouse parking lot
Edinburg (hwy 281 & 107)

To arrive at the Alamo
In San Antonio on veterans day Nov. 11, 2005
At about 12:00 noon

Express News Poll

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

You can vote in the totally unscientific online poll on the bottom of the front page of the San Antonio Express News online here.

Current results as of 10 am 1:30 pm are...

Chris Bell 4.2% 23.9%
Kinky Friedman 31.5% 28.2%
Rick Perry 25.8% 17.7%
Carole Keeton Strayhorn 22.0% 17.8%
Someone else 16.6% 12.3%

Also, rember that today is the frist day this week you can vote for John Courage in Democracy for America's first DFA-List endorsement.

http://tools.democracyforamerica.com/housevote/

What is Bonilla up to?

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

I received in my inbox earlier this week the following e-mail solicitation from Congressman Henry Bonilla (who is not my current congressman at either of my last two registered addresses. Emphasis mine.

Dear Constituent:

As your representative in Congress, I am requesting your permission to send you a few email updates every month. These communications will focus on the important issues facing Congress today.

The Internet has provided us an opportunity to speak to you directly and brings you a new way to be heard.

If you do not wish to have me contact you via email or if you believe you have received this message in error, please click the link below and your name will be permanently deleted from the email list.

Sincerely,
Henry Bonilla
Member of Congress

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This email is an official communication of a Member of Congress.
This communication does not represent in any way a commercial solicitation.
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You are receiving this e-mail as a registered voter in Texas. If you do not wish to receive periodic e-mail, please click here to be immediately removed from our list.

First, I thought that solicitation like this has to be opt-in, which it clearly is not. Any action I can take on the e-mail it to opt-out.

Secondly, why did I get the e-mail when I'm not in the district? I'm sure there are data companies out there that sell matched addresses to physical addresses so either mine was done incorrectly or he has sent this to all registered voters in Texas.

Thirdly, if he has sent this to all registered voters in Texas, is it part of plan to increase name ID for a statewide run for something other than Senate now that Sen. Hutchison is running for re-election, the seat he wanted?

Fourth, in any case, is this something that every Republican member of Congress is doing in a way possibly to extend their Franking privileges to the Internet in order to build another arena for the Republican Noise Machine? And if this is legal, would it be possible for Democrats to do as well?

Howard Dean in SA and the DNC Hispanic Leadership Summit

By Andrew Dobbs

I don't know that we've mentioned this yet, but the DNC's annual Hispanic Leadership Summit will be held in San Antonio from August 5th through the 7th at the Hyatt Riverwalk Hotel. This is the third year for the event, which seeks to bring Latino leaders from across the United States together in order to brainstorm ways for the Democratic Party to serve and harness the power of the Latino community in the United States today.

Many prominent Latinos-- including elected officials, activists and community leaders-- will be present and Chairman Howard Dean will be there as well. The event does not cost money, but the DNC is asking people to contact them at (202) 863-8000 in order to gauge how many people will be coming. Past events in Orlando and Albequerque have been big successes and most expect San Antonio to have more people than either of the previous summits. See Dean, talk politics and learn what must be done to maintain the Democratic Party as the majority party of the US' fastest growing ethnic group.

This will be a pretty exciting opportunity, especially for San Antonio Deaniacs. Spread the word far and wide so we can get as many people at this event as possible.

UPDATE: Meant to say this in the original message, but forgot. Be sure to send this information out to your friends, family or colleagues who might be interested in attending. Let's show the rest of the country that when it comes to leadership, Texas is the place to look.

Elena Guarjardo Takes Office

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

The first openly gay elected official in San Antonio, Elana Guarjardo, is now holding office and a SAEN piece on her bring some things to light.

During the campaign, Guajardo neither kept her lifestyle at arm's length nor made it a central issue of the race.

But now that she's poised to take office, it remains to be seen how she will be received by the larger San Antonio community, which may be moderate politically but is more conservative on social issues, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said.

"I think the city itself is philosophically a little left of center, but when it comes to gayness it's a different story," Wolff said.

Her near Northwest Side district is heavily Hispanic and Catholic, a demographic that doesn't often take a progressive view of controversial topics like homosexuality and abortion.

And while the District 7 campaign was a largely polite affair, it was marred by a crass mailer sent to prospective voters.

The unsigned postcard sought to inform residents of certain issues with several council candidates, including the fact that Guajardo is a lesbian.

But the issue apparently had little currency with many voters, said Maria Berriozábal, a former councilwoman and candidate for mayor in 1991.

"I had older ladies, mexicanas, telling me, 'Y eso que tiene que ver? (What does that have to do with anything?)'" Berriozábal said. "People would say to me, 'Es independiente (She's independent).'"

It's good to see that the reactionaries weren't out in force in her election. Maybe it's a sign of changing times, maybe it is a sign of a safe Democratic seat. It looks like others have an eye on her, in a good way.

Guajardo's candidacy caught the eye of the Washington-based Victory Fund, which tapped her as part of a long-term orchestrated offensive against what they see as an increase in threatening legislation, such as restricting the rights of gay and lesbian adoptive parents.

"It is one of our goals to return openly gay representation to the Texas Legislature," said Robin Brand, vice president for campaigns and elections of the Victory Fund.

Brand said the group's efforts aren't unlike those of many other political action committees — grooming candidates at the local level in the hopes they'll be elected to higher office to promote their viewpoint.

"We were excited about Elena's run because she's the first openly gay elected City Council member in the eighth largest city in the country," Brand said.

Although Guajardo said it's way too soon to even begin speculating about a future legislative run, she likely will be someone that organizations like the Victory Fund keep an eye on.

To say the least, BOR will be keeping an eye on her as well.