The Geren amendment was the speakers race, not the actual aye or nay cast nearly two weeks ago.
The Geren amendment was a vote to protect people from retribution and let them vote their conscience. While we honor the 27 that voted no to Craddick, it is way past time to thank the 68 that voted YES to the Geren amendment.
When Tom Craddick stepped onto the House floor today, he honestly did not know if he would be elected Speaker. That alone is something that would have been deemed unbelievable four years ago, and indeed even four months ago. If only six members had voted differently, we would have different leadership in the House. Unfortunately, that 45-minute delay on Rep. King's Point of Order probably resulted in at least that many votes being flipped.
For everyone who has discussed the powerful message sent to Craddick because 27 Representatives voted against his leadership, truly honor the debate that happened on Jan 9, 2007. Honor the 68 Representatives that voted to end the arm-twisting, manipulation, and pay to play politics.
6 votes made the difference, and the Geren amendment had 54 Democrats and 14 Republicans voting yes. Let's not forget who voted against it, but let's be sure to honor those that voted for it too. 6 more votes on the Geren amendment, and Jim Pitts stays in the race and Craddick is no longer speaker of the Texas House.
The ethical and necessary vote, is always the hardest one to cast. Those 68 members, are the true Courage Caucus.
The Legislative Budget Board (LBB) did something extreme today, they said that the Texas Legislature will not be able to spend more than $62.8 billion. Before you start thinking that is a lot of money to run Texas, think again.
In an editorial in the Waco Tribune yesterday, the editorial staff called the Perry tax plan, "irresponsible" because the "economy is certain to cool".
Ok, your right, that is just conjecture. How about some facts?
…just to keep pace with current services and to free up designated funds for their intended purposes, "we do not have a budget surplus at all; we are $3 billion short."
In order to make the LBB's spending cap, the state is required to cut state agencies and services and prevent them from receiving money that has been allocated and voted on, but not yet appropriated.
As our favorite person Jim Pitts stated at Quorum Report, the current LBB directive asking agencies to submit a budget at 90 percent of baseline would yield $2 billion in savings. However, that translates to a 20 percent cuts in state agencies, and a lack of funding for the second year of teacher raises and other spending priorities such as growth in public school enrollment, social services or prison system capacity.
This is a classic example of, cut off the head and the body will die. If the LBB limits the state to this number, all agencies and social programs will suffer. All. The ever famous line from Abramoff pal and staunch Republican Grover Norquist is, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
It's over. You can welcome Speaker Tom Craddick back for another session. Thank you Craddick Democrats and disorganized Republicans.
House Democratic Caucus leader Jim Dunnam released this statement.
"Today, there are 80 Republicans in the Texas House and, not surprisingly, a Republican Speaker. In spite of their clear partisan majority, Republicans are responsible for the hardest and closest fought Speaker's race in decades.
"I am sure that Mr. Craddick and his allies will return to their wrong-headed attempts to force bad public policy through the House, and into Texas homes. And I am confident that the good Democrats in the House will stand side by side and fight those policies, as we have over the past years and as we did today. But win or lose on the House floor this session, we will be ready in November, 2008. And soon enough, we will be celebrating the victory of another House Speaker - this time, a Democrat."
While my website, Capitol Annex is down, I thought I'd hop over here to BOR and post some of my thoughts, since...after all, I'm a BOR writer too.
If you are watching the House via live feed right now, you'll notice that the house is pretty vacant. Why? Because they at ease considering what to do about a point of order.
A point of order was raised during the debate.
Remember, too, that a point of order is often raised as a tactic when your side is having problems getting its votes together or needs to delay debate. Democrats have used it in the past to try to stop bad legislation. Today, Craddickat Republicans are using it to try to buy time for the Man from Midland.
The problem with this point of order lies in that the Secretary of State doesn't have the authority to rule on the point of order. How would he?
It's been over two hours since the end of the inaugural portion of the Texas House proceedings, and we still haven't even voted on the rules for electing a Speaker.
How could Craddick and his parliamentarian not be prepared for this? The answer is -- they couldn't be. Everyone has known this was coming since November 8. The fact is, Craddick is De-Laying everything, and that failing leadership is exactly why his reign of error should end.
We've been waiting for a long time now. We've seen this kind of extensive stalling before -- when Craddick didn't have the votes he needed to win. It doesn't take this long to distribute a resolution. It simply doesn't.
(Resolution on voting: vote on a piece of paper and sign your name. Amendments could do several things to those pieces of paper: (1) require the paper to be destroyed, (2) require the votes to be immediately recorded in the Journal, or (3) require that the papers be recorded in the Journal and made public after the newly elected Speaker had made committee appointments. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
We're counting on you, readers! The House Chamber video isn't working, so those in front of a TV, please keep adding comments to this thread to let everyone know what's going on.
Thanks to Quorum Report, here's the video of Craddick supporters:
There are only a total of 62 folks ID'd in the video and while they may not have caught everyone, it verifies reports that Craddick did not have 75 votes there yesterday.
Thanks to our commenter -- there's a video of the 10 Democrats that were there, too. Check below the fold, or click here, to watch that video.
(Bumped for Monday. Rep. Lucio (D) had decided to pledge to Craddick for some reason. Reps. Geren AND Kuempel made their support of Pitts official. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Momentum against Speaker Tom Craddick has continued throughout the weekend as two House Democrats, Rep. Richard Raymond and Rep. Chuck Hopson, rescinded their pledges to Craddick and pledged to Jim Pitts. From Rep. Raymond's press release:
In a direct and strongly worded letter delivered today, Representative Richard Raymond (D-Laredo) informed Tom Craddick that he is withdrawing his support for a third term as Speaker due to his belief that the Craddick is unwilling to return ethical and even-handed leadership to the House. Raymond wrote, "Having thoughtfully discussed this race with over two dozen of my Republican colleagues, I now know you would lose a secret ballot race by an overwhelming margin, and, frankly, I now expect you to lose regardless of how we cast our votes."
Rep. Chuck Hopson rescinded his pledge to Craddick for similar reasons. Via Quorum Report:
"We have been told that Speaker Craddick would be more open and balanced next session, but his actions clearly speak louder than his words.
More and more momentum against Craddick as we get closer to Tuesday's vote.
Clockin the souls of men out like he was G-O-D and
W-A-Rrah, there'll be no tomorrow but sorrow
and horror will follow the hollow hearts battle for dollars
Politicians, modern day magicians
Physicians of death, more health care for poor health...
-- "War," by Outkast
Just trying to shake things up a bit, everyone! This was the only album I could think of with any possible political connection to the Speaker's race. So at least I tried.
As the Speaker's race approaches, more and more articles, columns, and editorials will be written predicting what will happen on the floor of the Texas House next Tuesday (I think Paul Burka has covered everysituationimaginable). If you haven't read Burka, you can also check out Rep. Aaron Pena's blog, where he predicts Craddick will win:
This left one challenger to the current speaker of the house. Will he succeed where other challengers did not? Knowing history to be the final arbiter, based on observable evidence, including the majority of recent converts, it is my opinion that he will not.
Here at BOR, we're still practicing our ABC's. We firmly believe that a new Speaker allows new opportunities for better legislation across the board -- legislation that far outweighs any pet projects members may be awarded by sticking with Craddick. Remember, the only reason the Democrats' school finance plan didn't pass the House in the special sessions was because of arm-twisting and rules manuevering by Craddick. Fairness is the goal, and any change is better.
We've updated our poll, so you can now vote between Craddick or Pitts. Feel free to go vote anytime before Tuesday, and we'll keep you updated as more develops in the Speaker's race.
