I will not vote for Tom Craddick for speaker of the 81st Legislature under any circumstances.
While the House Democratic Caucus had this to say in their press release:
As Texans first, House Democrats have worked and continue to work to bring change to the Texas House of Representatives. Moving Texas forward for all Texans with policies that improve the lives of our constituents has been our overriding goal. Allowing each House Member to represent their constituents to the best of their ability, and allow ideas, bills and policy to be dictated by the merits is the best way to achieve that goal. We are eager to work with like-minded Republicans in a bipartisan manner.
Rather than listing all the people that signed the pledge, it is easier to list the familiar few who did not:
Harold Dutton, Jr.
Al Edwards
Ismael (Kino) Flores
Helen Giddings
Dawnna Dukes
Ryan Guillen
Ruth Jones McClendon
Tracy King
Aaron Pena
Sylvester Turner
This is a familiar list for anyone who pays attention to the legislature. All of these Democrats supported Craddick in the 80th Legislature and most received plush committee assignments in return.
However, not signing the pledge is not the same as a vote. I remain optimistic that some of these elected Democrats will vote for leadership in the Texas House. All of them represent Democratic areas with DPI's ranging from 55% in Tracy King's district to as high 76% in Dawnna Dukes' district.
These are Democratic strongholds and their values must be represented-- something Tom Craddick clearly does not do.
There are no grudges from 2007. We are all looking at 2009 as a clean slate. BOR looks forward to seeing more names added to this list before the session begins.
Quick Math Update: The following 12 Republicans have publicly stated they will not support Tom Craddick-- Reps. Dan Gattis, Rob Eissler, Joe Straus, Charlie Geren, Edmund Kuempel, Brian McCall, Jim Keffer ,Burt Solomons, Byron Cook, Delwin Jones, Tommy Merritt and Jim Pitts.
There are now 64 explicitly named Democrats and 12 explicitly named Republicans. That is a grand total of 76 actual names against Craddick. Yet Craddick still refuses to release a list of his supporters. Interesting.
The resurgence of the Democratic Party has never been more clear than now. With 8 days until the election, the House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC) has spent $1,000,000 since July 1 to support Democrats running for election and re-election to the Texas House.
When the HDCC started in 2004, it had one contract employee, a few thousand dollars in the bank and a 26 seat deficit in numbers. No one imagined taking back the House in 3 election cycles was remotely possible. Because of the numbers and a punitive redistricting map, we thought a 10 year plan was optimistic, and only hopelessly delusional optimists thought about a majority by 2009 (apologies to Lon).
What started initially as a simple idea to form a PAC where House Democrats could help fellow Democratic members has grown to become one of the most trusted, respected and impressive political operations in Texas. You should be proud to be part of that effort.
The truth of the matter is HDCC is one of the biggest reasons why we are on the brink of taking back the Texas House. They have committed to working with newly elected Democrats and guide them through the process. They have had laser focus before and during elections to win swing seats. All the headaches Tom Craddick and Terry Keel have on a daily basis, are because of the HDCC and it's leaders.
While Tom Craddick has lost control of his 26-seat majority in his tenure as Speaker of the House, Jim Dunnam, Pete Gallego, and Garnet Coleman have picked up seats every cycle since creating the HDCC.
One State Republican Executive Committee Member, Mark McCraig said in a recent editorial, "What was once a 26-seat Republican majority in 2003 has dwindled to an eight-seat majority today, and that number will almost certainly shrink again this year."
McCraig goes one step further in his editorial in the Stateman:
An ethical cloud also surrounds Craddick because of his close ties to lobbyists. Last year, Craddick and a prominent lobbyist were sued by a tour company after a dispute over a fishing trip to Brazil that Craddick and the lobbyist had canceled. Financial disclosure forms filed by Craddick also show a business relationship with a lobbyist whose identity he refuses to disclose. In light of recent scandals, grass-roots Republicans must demand that their leaders act in a manner that is beyond reproach.
In nearly 40 years in the Legislature, Craddick helped build the Republican Party and the conservative movement in Texas. Unfortunately, his recent actions have cast a shadow on years of public service, and he must recognize that the best way to promote the Republican Party and the conservative values he claims to represent is to allow a new speaker to serve.
Rather than having a Tom Craddick appointed successor, it is time to have a Democrat lead the House.
As the letter points out:
One million dollars is a heck of a lot of money - particularly in the face of our opposition. It is the tangible result of tireless work done by Texas Democrats who want to restore a sense of balance to the Texas House. You should know that the confidence shown us by donors is really a direct result of our Caucus unity demonstrated session after session in the face of adversity. They saw us fighting the good fight, persevering in the face of overwhelming odds and standing tall for the people of Texas. Our unity of voice and effort has not been in vain.
In a point of personal privilege, I want to thank Rep. Dunnam, Rep. Gallego, Rep. Coleman, and the hard working staff at HDCC for everything y'all have done this year and the harder ones before.
That being said, we have one week left, let's take back the House today!
To read the full letter from Jim Dunnam, Pete Gallego, and Garnet Coleman to the Democratic Caucus, click here (warning it is a pdf).
"My first thought is what a wonderful thing it is for so many people. It eliminates the stigma attached to mental illness and obviously it eliminates the discrimination imbedded in the law. [. . .] But on a personal level, clearly, savoring this victory with my father [Sen. Ted Kennedy] at this point in our lives - at this moment in his life - is a dream come true."
More than one-third of all Americans will soon receive better insurance coverage for mental health treatments because of a new law that, for the first time, requires equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses.
The requirement, included in the economic bailout bill that President Bush signed on Friday, is the result of 12 years of passionate advocacy by friends and relatives of people with mental illness and addiction disorders. They described the new law as a milestone in the quest for civil rights, an effort to end insurance discrimination and to reduce the stigma of mental illness.
Passing mental health parity legislation has been a huge priority for the Kennedys. Teaming with Congressman Jim Ramstad (R-MI) (who himself has battled alcohol and drug addiction), Congressman Kennedy held a series of nationwide hearings last year on the need for mental health parity legislation. Congressman Ramstad praised Rep. Kennedy willingness to speak openly about his personal struggle with bipolar disorder, noting that "[t]he power of Patrick's personal witness has touched thousands."
The House Democratic Campaign Committee is hosting Congressman Kennedy and Congressman Chet Edwards at a fundraising reception Houston on October 22. You can find more information or buy tickets for the reception by clicking here. If you can make it, come out to honor a great legislator who has invested tremendously in improving mental health coverage for Americans who need it.
Texas House Democratic Nominee Diana Maldonado was recognized and honored with an email sent out by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) alerting Democrats across the country of the promise her campaign holds to pick up another seat for the HDCC.
DLCC Executive Director Michael Sargeant takes time each week to recognize a few choice legislative candidates from around the country with an email asking Democrats to support their candidacies.
BlogPac was one of the first PACs to recognize the potential to pick up a seat and build our majority with Maldonado's campaign.
Remember to support Diana at www.dianamaldonado.com.
As always, you can find the DLCC at www.dlcc.org.
Although Texas Democrats might not be very familiar with the organization, Michael Sargeant has done a tremendous job at the DLCC.
They have been at the tip of the spear in flipping state legislative chambers all over the country. The DLCC raises money and places talent. We are fortunate that they are becoming more involved in Texas.
The DLCC offers us the opportunity to highlight more competitive Texas races. So if you want to help your local Democratic challenger out:
We are still looking for 10 emerging races. So far more than 700 of you have suggested names of good Democrats running impressive campaigns all across the country. Will you take the time to tell us about a race we should be watching in your area?
I personally worked with them to flip the Iowa House and hold the Tennessee House in 2006.
Aspiring campaign operatives should send in their resume to the DLCC. It is a great source to get entry level campaign jobs as well as management jobs and caucus director positions.
As readers may have noticed, we at BOR have taken a particular interest in the open SD-17 special election (you can read most of the posts here) and have raised over $1,000 for Chris Bell.
Now it seems like someone else is interested in the race, too: Ron Wilson.
You would stand a better chance being raped by a water buffalo than having any accurate information on Ron Wilson or Tom Craddick.
Former Craddick assistant parliamentarian Ron Wilson seems to not only be interested in SD-17, he seems to be working with Republicans to recruit and keep questionable candidates and the ballot. Wilson is also spinning the Republican talking points and defaming Democratic candidates and their supporter.
Before I go much further, it's time to let everyone know that Ron Wilson is not Baby Snooks as one reader speculated. That did get me wondering though, about the writing pattern of user "D. Davenport" who has only shown up a handful of times to attack Democratic House Leader Jim Dunnam, defend failed candidate Latreese Cooke, defend Donna Keel's brother-in-law and Craddick Parliamentarian Terry Keel, and Craddick D Sylvester Turner.
D. Davenport has an extensive understanding (although faulty interpretation) of House rules. D. Davenport has written almost exclusively in Austin, but seems to know a lot about Houston elected officials and races. Most interesting, D. Davenport has made it a point to lie about matters of public record including payments and statements on the House floor.
At one point in June of last year, D. Davenport said, "You have no idea who you are corresponding with nor do you need to know."
After some investigation, we can tell you we know who D. Davenport is.
D. Davenport is none other than Ron Wilson.
That's right, former Assistant House Parliamentarian and State Representative Ron Wilson is the one who has been attacking readers and calling people racists on Burnt Orange Report.
Like all our registered community members, Ron Wilson provided an e-mail address when he registered. The e-mail he provided only had two results when you google it. One site is the state bar of Texas. The other is a car forum, where a guest, "ron_wilson" talks shop about high end cars.
The point here is that D. Davenport, like Buck Smith is a paid political operative. They concealed their identity, picked fights with our community members, and expected to get away with it. We don't go looking up every user account. (For one, there are over 4,000 users and besides that, we generally expect people to play fair.)
In fact, if a reader hadn't speculated that Baby Snooks was Ron Wilson, we never would have found out who D. Davenport was. I wouldn't have looked through his 20 comments to realize a pattern.
Because of "D. Davenport's" comments, one reader called to tell me Ron Wilson admitted to recruiting Stephanie Simmons to challenge Chris Bell in Senate District 17 -- saying simply, "What do you think about what we did to your boy Bell?"
How do you feel about that? We don't like it and we don't like "Buck Smith" or "D. Davenport" style deception on Burnt Orange Report.
If you don't like it either, please feel to give a dollar for every comment Buck Smith and or D. Davenport has made on BOR to either TexBlog PAC or the House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC) to make sure we can end this sort of deception in Austin.
I believe this is the first year the House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC) has had produced ads. They are clever, to the point, and draw a perfect contrast between Democrats and Republicans in Texas. I hope they continue to have the resources to do more stuff like this.
The House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC) launched a new, sleeker website today that highlights the group's mission -- winning back 5 seats in the Texas House and working to "elect and re-elect strong Democrats" to the Texas House of Representatives.
On their site are also also two videos -- presumably internet videos, for now anyway -- that highlight the failed Republican policies of the past five years.
The story about the money contributed and spent by the HDCC is the same story told by winning Democrats across Texas: raise money early, invest in an infrastructure early, use that infrastructure to build support and prove how effective you can be, and use that infrastructure to raise money to donate to campaigns and pay for GOTV efforts of all shapes and sizes.
The HDCC infrastructure worked like a "campaign Google" for Texas House candidates. HDCC staffers spent countless hours each and every day on the phones with every candidate and campaign that would take their calls (or that called them).
Led by our Texans of the year -- State Reps. Garnet Coleman, Jim Dunnam and Pete Gallego -- the HDCC is working hard again this year. Visit their site, sign up to act, and join with one of the best groups in the country working to help elect more Democrats to office.
[The good folks at the HDCC are taking some time out of their schedule this weeks to spend some time in the Blogosphere, in particular writing Guest Blogs to help the Netroots learn more about the great work done by the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee. Reps. Dunnam, Gallego, and Coleman will each be writing a guest blog, and you'll be able to find each at a different Texas blog. Today, we've got a guest post from House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam (D-Waco). Stay tuned,and we'll tell you where Thursday's will be in the comments.--VL]
Back in May, I read a very amusing article in which former Secretary of State Roger Williams told a crowd of Republicans that they are underdogs going into November’s general election. He said “This is a challenging time to be a Republican…We’re the underdogs and we have to act like it.” I wasn’t there for the speech, but, as far as I know, he wasn’t trying to make a joke. Despite holding every lever of power in the State of Texas and having every financial advantage possible, Republicans are scared. They’re scared because of people like you: Netroots activists, voters and organizers.
Texas is on pace to pick up as many as 4 new congressional districts. Booming growth in Texas cities and the conglomeration of the suburbs in addition to states like California, Ohio, Florida, and New York all seeing their growth stagnate or even decline means that Texas will have the largest increase in congressional strength.
It is likely these seats could lean Democratic looking at the 2000 census. According to those numbers, McAllen, Austin/San Marcos, and Laredo all ranked in the 10 fastest growing cities. With out having hard numbers, I would speculate the other area that may see an addition to the Congressional delegation would be in the DFW or San Antonio area, but that is total speculation.
In any case, these 4 seats could mean big gains for us if Democrats have a say in how the new map is drawn.
There is one way to have a say in the process and prevent another purely partisan map. A constitutional amendment in 1951 established the redistricting process and established the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB). The board is composed of the lieutenant governor, speaker of the house, attorney general, comptroller, and land commissioner. Let's go through this really quickly; David Dewhurst, Tom Craddick, Greg Abbott, Susan Combs, and Jerry Patterson will determine the fate of these 4 new seats along with the 32.
This election cycle we can't do anything about the statewide candidates directly, but we can build the infrastructure necessary to secure one or more spots on the LRB.
We currently have 71 Democrats in the state house. If we can win back the House this cycle (pick up 5 more seats) we will have taken 1 of the 5 seats on the redistricting board. More importantly, we will have expanded our bench and trained more messengers.
Having Democratic elected officials lower down the ballot increases our strength at the top of the ballot. Having State Representatives, County Court at Law Judges, Constables, County Commissioners, and more we solidify our ability to win up and down the ballot by creating messengers and developing party infrastructure.
4 new congressional seats should serve as a wake up call and signal to focus our collective efforts on the Legislative Redistricting Board. That is one of the many reasons TexBlog PAC was formed, to take back the Texas House and secure a Democratic voice on the redistricting board.
Dan Barrett's victory tonight has implications beyond better representation for Fort Worth residents. To relay its importance, we have to look at what brought us to this point.
In 2001, Republican's drew a map they thought would elect 102 R's and 48 D's. They were wrong as only 88 Republicans and 62 Democrats were elected in 2002. Still, it was a striking blow to Democrats as we had lost our majority, the Speakership, and control of the operation of the Texas House. That was a low point for Democrats in Texas as well as nationally. The result was the rise of the neo-conservative, uber Republican Tom Craddick who slashed the budget and cut social programs like CHIP and education funding. To this day that funding has never been restored even with surpluses in the state budget.
In 2006, Democrats won 6 seats plus Donna Howard's special election. In 2007 we welcomed Kirk England to the Democratic Party and now we have Dan Barrett as member of our caucus as well. We've not even yet had a single vote cast the 2008 primaries, and there are now 71 Democrats in Texas House- a stunning and speedy reversal based on the same map that was drawn to have only 42 Democratic seats.
Yesterday's election in Fort Worth was a runoff between a Democrat and multiple Republicans even though only one Republican in name was on the ballot. It was a race between the Democrat fighting for fair representation and the Republican Speaker and his possible enabler. Dan Barrett vs. Tom Craddick and his crony Mark Shelton.
House District 97 was not drawn to be a Democratic seat. In 2006, Barrett had taken on the recently retired Anna Mowery and claimed only 40.82% of the vote. Tarrant County on the whole only gave Barbara Radnofsky, the U.S. Senate nominee, 34.80%, Chris Bell 31.07% in his bid for Governor, and the bellwhether Texas Supreme Court candidate Bill Moody 42.79% of the vote. The Republican's should have won this election based on the poor democratic performance index (DPI) of the district alone. During the special election yesterday, Barrett won with 52.2% of the vote.
In addition, Barrett was dramatically out spent. According to the 8 day out reports, Mark Shelton spent over $100,000 and raised (and presumably spent) another $10,000 from TexPAC before the election. Barrett on the other hand spent a little over $45,000 according to his 8 day report. Again, according to his telegram reports, raised an additional $4,000 in the final week of the election from Texas Parent PAC and two individuals.
Breaking it down, that means Barrett spent $9.13 per vote compared to about $23.40 per vote for Shelton.
This is a stunning referendum on Tom Craddick and whether change is needed in Fort Worth and through out Texas. The voters said yes to change.
This election is a sign of the future. In less than 2 years, Texas Democrats have picked up 8 state house seats with rumors circulating that another may be on the way. Before the primaries are over, the gains made by the Republican's have been cut in half while we still compete on the same Republican favored, unconstitutional, Tom DeLay sponsored map. We sit on the edge of a Democratic House because we have won special elections, general elections, and the hearts and minds of voters across the state.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Boyd Richie stated simply:
"I congratulate our newest Democratic State Representative Dan Barrett on his victory in House District 97. In an election marred with dirty tricks and Craddick cronies, Dan ran as an independent voice, who could be trusted to stand up against Tom Craddick's special interest agenda and fight for the best interests of Texas families.
Dan Barrett won in a district drawn by Republicans to elect a Republican, and his victory is a slap in the face to Speaker Tom Craddick and the failed Republican leadership in this state. Voters have sent a message that they are tired of "business as usual" in Austin and want leaders who will replace the pay-to-play politics of the Republican Party with a state government that works for all Texans."
Presumptive Democratic Senate nominee and State Representative Lt. Col Rick Noriega added:
"Yesterday, Texans voted for change. They stood up for Texas values and said no to business as usual. They said no to the politics of division. They said yes to an independent voice who will put Texas families and children first.
Dan Barrett's win in the Texas State House is about change for Texas, but it's also about a change in how campaigns are won. We wouldn't have narrowed the Republican majority from 26 seats to 8 seats over the last five years without the work of Texas netroots. That's why your actions online - from raising attention to raising money - are so important."
The tide *is* changing. We are a mere five seats away from a Democratic majority in the Texas House and removing Tom Craddick from the dais. To the House Democratic Campaign Committee, Rep. Lon Burnam, Rep. Mark Veasey, the staff and many others involved in this race, congratulations. Now it is our job to elect more good Democrats and protect our current elected leaders.
When Republicans out spend us in Republican drawn districts and lose it solidifies our need to run everywhere. It means our message and our organizing skills are superior. It means supporting Tom Craddick and his style of Republican "leadership" is a losing proposition.
"My first thought is what a wonderful thing it is for so many people. It eliminates the stigma attached to mental illness and obviously it eliminates the discrimination imbedded in the law. [. . .] But on a personal level, clearly, savoring this victory with my father [Sen. Ted Kennedy] at this point in our lives - at this moment in his life - is a dream come true."
