The candidate filing period opened today — and Dan was there to make it official, saying he hoped to signal his understanding of how eager Central Texas voters are to get started on changing Washington.
It’s World Series week, and Congressman Mike McCaul is about to get another chance to improve his batting average when a measure providing uninsured Texas kids the kind of health insurance program he enjoys comes up again for debate.
So far, he’s batting 0-2.
First, he voted against the bi-partisan SCHIP bill that would have extended coverage to nearly 1.4 million Texas children whose parents work hard and earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance. Then, he remained in lockstep with the Bush-Cheney administration and voted against overriding the President’s veto.
Forty-four Republicans joined the Democratic majority in voting to override last week and guarantee access to affordable health care for the children of parents who are working hard and playing by the rules. They ignored the misinformation spread by the White House and did the right thing.
(Vote to override is today -- dial those phones! - promoted by Phillip Martin)
The U.S. House Thursday is scheduled to vote on whether to override the President's controversial veto of the bi-partisan State Children's Health Insurance Program. Rep. Mike McCaul should vote to provide more than 1.4 million uninsured Texas children the health care they need.
Unfortunately, McCaul voted against uninsured kids and for insurance industry special interests the first round. Will he find the moral courage to do the right thing today? Will he finally make Texas priorities his priorities?
The commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence wasn't really a surprise. We already knew the President believed in amnesty.
But the silence from our Congressman is troubling. Mike McCaul fancies himself an authority on national security and is a member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.
When I was a 17-year-old high school student in Austin, I volunteered for Congressman Jake Pickle, the legendary Texas Congressman who held the CD-10 seat for 31 years, from 1963 until he retired in 1994. Back then CD-10 was known as "LBJ's District" because a young Lyndon Johnson had held it. LBJ used the seat to lead implementation of FDR's New Deal, and his efforts brought electricity to central Texas.
Congressman Pickle was a worthy heir to the LBJ legacy. His work to reorganize Social Security has kept the program solvent and functioning into the present. He also brought a great deal of research and technology investment to the area, and was a strong and effective advocate for higher education and the University of Texas.
Now I’m running for that seat myself. And though the district has changed dramatically (thanks to Tom DeLay and his partisan allies), the promise of public service I learned in Congressman Pickle's office still holds true today: honor the past and imagine the future.
I’m running for U.S. Congress in the Texas 10th. Why?
Because my district was gerrymandered by Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, and our current representative does not reflect the mainstream values of Houston, Austin, and all the places in between.
Iraq. Katrina. Abu Ghraib. Walter Reed and Guantánamo, Osama Bin Laden at large. Big Pharma writing Medicare plans while Texas seniors lose prescription drug coverage. Big Insurance writing campaign checks while Texans pay twice the national average to insure their homes. Soaring deficits, a demoralized foreign policy — and a capital city so tied up in partisan knots that they have no idea how to get us back on the right track.
Frank Luntz's verbal sorcery cannot be trusted. Recently, the Washington Post ran an op/ed by Luntz about what's wrong with Republicans and why they seem to be terrible at politics lately. He points to all of the actual reasons - the war, the budget, the wedge politics - but he prescribes more of the same behavior for Republicans, asserting that it is what Americans want. I, surprisingly enough, disagree.
To BOR, KOS, Kuff, PDiddie, Van Os, Annatopia, TexasKaos and so many others: BOTTOMS UP!
Our Representatives who signed on to Rep. Holt's HR811 bill (formerly HR550) before having the time to read and analyze it, need to reconsider this decision so important to all of us, to our future.
The time for action is NOW, and it is urgent. The new Democratic majority in Congress wants to act swiftly on election reform, but they are going down the wrong path. A dangerous path. It is up to us to help them out of the woods. We can provide them with the necessary cover to DO THE RIGHT THING by bringing public pressure to bear, and letting them know that it is OK to follow the right path this time around. They can safely take a new tack and appropriately blame the lobbyist- and industry-supported HAVA on its original architect, Bob Ney, now serving time in Federal prison.
It's been more than a year since John Courage announced his bid to run for Congress in Congressional District 21. It was September 17, 2005 on the Texas State Capitol grounds that John started this political journey. A bus full of supporters came along on that announcement tour. Change was in the air.
Sorry that I haven?t been around lately, but Election Day is upon us so I have to say something. In even numbered years Election Day is my favorite holiday (in odd numbered, Christmas). Once every two years we get a chance to overthrow the government, an opportunity to remake our Republic in new ways. Things are now coming to a head and what happens tomorrow will have reverberations through the next several decades. One of two things will happen, I believe, and which of the two occurs will indicate how things go.
The first possibility is the one that everyone is predicting: Democrats will take back the House with 20-30 seats gained, and may very well take over the Senate (though that is far less likely). The GOP bottom will fall out and we may even make big gains in places like Idaho (so much for decrying Dean?s 50 state outreach program). Here in Texas Democrats will gain probably 4-8 seats in the State House, enough for a new Speaker and may very well nip Perry out of office. More likely Bell will fall just short of the goal and the Texas Democratic Party leadership will be solely to blame.
The second possibility is the more logical one. If we can use exit polls to know that the Ukrainian presidential election was stolen, if we can use exit polls to know that the Iranian presidential election was stolen, then we can use them to tell that the last presidential election was stolen. The 2000 election was, as we know, also stolen. In 2002 Democrats suck up job to the inflated Bush probably did the trick on its own. But now is the litmus test. They can steal it by letting Democrats gain 10-14 seats in the House and 3 or 4 in the Senate, and they have all the motivation in the world to do it. As long as they have the Speaker, the Majority Leader and the President, there is one party rule. As long as that exists (and a pusillanimous and divided opposition is all that exists in the Democrats) they will continue to grant themselves sweeping, even autocratic powers.
