Aaron Pena's twitter feed has been solid since the Speaker race started moving.
Pena points out Quorum Reports point that Rep. Senfronia Thompson has withdrawn from the race and thrown her support behind Republican Joe Straus.
Meanwhile, Speaker candidate QR Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) has withdrawn her speaker candidacy and is contacting her supporters endorsing Straus.
Thompson told QR, "I am going to support this guy. I looked at the other candidates but he is the best. I think it might be the beginning of something different."
In addition, Pena confirms rumors that John Smithee has faxed in his paperwork to the Texas Ethics Commission to be a candidate for Speaker. However, sources are reporting Smithee's candidacy is a day late and a dollar short. It appears that Straus has locked this up. The question is who will be last to the Straus camp.
Where's Tom Craddick? The Capitol press knows the beleaguered House Speaker has called a meeting today for his "team," meaning a meeting of his mythical majority. And it's the mythical nature of that majority that's causing him to play hide-and-seek with his meeting.
The Gang of 11 (anti-Craddick Republicans) guarantees 11 votes or more for Joe Straus. The Democrats have released 64 votes committed to voting against Tom Craddick. John Smithee has all but announced. Warren Chisum is trying to talk Craddick out of the race, and he puts Craddick's support in the 50s. That's 77 members, two more than half the House. It's a clear majority, even if Chisum retreats back to Craddick the way he's retreated from some of his public comments.
Some members formerly known as "Craddick Ds" appear to be walking away from that dangerous adjective, "Craddick," before the "D." And they will vote against Craddick.
Uncommitted members of both parties are meeting and talking one-on-one with Straus, who has collected more pledges already, making that easy-to-count 77 even bigger.
Some time today Craddick (R-Midland), is having a meeting. However, the location of the meeting is more illusive than Craddick's support for re-election.
So far the list of rumored locations includes:
Agriculture Room in the Texas Capitol
Sullivan's Steakhouse
The Austin Club
Ruth's Chris on 6th Street
With three very different venues and the needed space small, its hard to tell where Tom Craddick will go.
Craddick has never been one to shy away from announcing his numbers or shielding his supporters. Why now? Simple answer, he doesn't have the votes and he is playing hide-and-seek with the press and public to hide his obvious vulnerability.
That's why we need your help.
We can't be at all of these place at once (and there's no certainty the meeting will be at any of them). We need your help finding Craddick's super secret meeting and if possible getting video of it. Who was there? Who wasn't? Did the press show up? What did the press miss?
This is citizen journalism at its best and your help, well, helps.
This wouldn't be BOR if we didn't offer a super secret prize to anyone who gets video of the meeting or a verified list of its attendees. Or even correctly identifies the time and location.
We continue to speculate that Craddick doesn't have the votes. Phil has shown his shrinking ceiling. Now, help us uncover the ceiling under which Craddick's shrunken support will huddle. Look for venues where 50 or so could gather n private. No need to look for larger venues.
Update: The more will not be the merrier for Tom Craddick. A source tells me that the members still pledged to Craddick will ask him to release them and withdraw from the Speaker race today. He doesn't have the votes. His people know he doesn't have the votes and nobody wants to be the last one to rally to the new speaker.
Will Craddick honor his few supporters and withdraw?
Some tidbits you may or may not know about the ongoing Speaker's Race.
We have a high degree of confidence in telling you that Rep. Elect Doug Miller (slayer of Macias) is supporting Rep. Straus for speaker. He has been previously uncommitted to Craddick but not part of the Gang of 11. His district also borders that of Straus.
R.G. Ratcliffe takes a look at Straus's cash on hand: $621,902
Elise Hu reports on Dawnna Dukes. Tongue twisters are involved.
The Democratic Caucus has met, but no announcements. That matches what I'm hearing in that the members are still wanting more info on his background and style. Different members have different reasons for being hesitant with committing even though the only choices are Craddick, Gattis, and Straus at this point.
It seems that there can't be an overall consensus on whether Joe Straus would be a good speaker for Democrats or not. He's a fiscal conservative that doesn't get along terribly well with the socially right-winged, but he is a stalwart member of the Republican establishment, too.
To illustrate the differences between possible opinions, look at what Vince thinks at Capitol Annex compared to what conservative David Barton of Wallbuilders.com thinks.
As a follow up to the message you received earlier about the Texas Speaker, the first step has been taken to install an anti-life, anti-family Texas House Speaker. The 11 dissident Republicans selected Rep. Joe Straus as their candidate for Speaker, and that selection is expected to be supported by 64 anti-life and anti-family Democrats.
Unfortunately, Rep. Straus (who has been in office for only two sessions) has developed a clear voting record that demonstrates overt hostility toward unborn life and traditional family values.
Straus as Speaker would be a complete and utter unmitigated disaster for Democrats.
Perhaps from a public policy standpoint, he won't push some of the exceedingly right-wing Leo Berman-style garbage like denial of education benefits for immigrants, but you can bet that he'll still push a far-right-of-center agenda that has nothing to do with tuition re-regulation, electric re-regulation. But, you can bet his agenda will be all about right-wing issues like voter identification, bogus property tax "relief" schemes that will take more money away from important programs, and school vouchers.
Worse than that, Strauss will stop the GOP hemorrhaging seats in the chamber, and possibly deny Democrats a majority until after redistricting? How? Why? Because Strauss is the GOP establishment. He'll bring money and power to a House Republican campaign organization that needs it. He'll bring a fresh, less controversial face-one that will be awfully hard for Democrats to hang on GOP incumbents necks' like an albatross come 2010. It means less gains in seats for Democrats, and, possibly, less Democratic holds.
For Democrats, there really isn't a clear issue, except that the 64 who signed the pledge should stick to that pledge. I think policy-wise we will be better off with almost any Republican not named Craddick, but it would be hard to determine who the best Republican for that job would be. Vince also makes a particularly strong argument that Democrats should stay voting in bloc for a Democrat.
It's our duty to Texans to ensure that we don't let Tom Craddick get another term as speaker. So the Democrats who pledged against him should stick to that pledge. Beyond that, they probably should just vote the way they think best for their constituents.
The 64 Democrats could easily prove to be a power player if they wanted to unite behind one Republican. But is there really one Republican you could justify Democrats uniting behind?
This election might take a few ballots. Hopefully not a few hundred, but it would not shock me.
Quorum Report verifies rumors circulating that the Gang of 11, the 11 Republicans committed to anybody other than Craddick, have selected San Antonio Republican Joe Straus.
Straus has not filed as an official candidate for Speaker according to the Texas Ethic Commission.
"There are people on both tickets who you know don’t belong in public office,” Mr. Straus said. “That should offend open-minded people from both parties. I can’t imagine an argument against this.”
Opponents of Mr. Straus’ bill question his motives.
“It wasn’t an issue when Republicans were winning elections,” said state Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas. “It’s worked, and it’s worked for years. Look at the high voter turnout in these elections. People are engaged in the process.”
Mr. Straus said he thought his bill would have traction and would soon add sponsors, including Democratic lawmakers who must contend with straight-ticket Republican voters.
But the road could be difficult.
“He has the right to file his bill,” said state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. “We have the right to make sure it’s defeated.”
Since at least 1967, Texans have been able to vote solely along party lines, a process that allows the voter to select a political party’s entire slate with one vote.
The fact that so many voters are choosing to vote straight-ticket shows that the system is working. If Straus wants this to pass, he is going to have to put forth a better case than this.
It is certainly hard to imagine Straus filing this bill had straight-ticket voting helped Republicans in this past election.
In Travis County this year, 65 percent of straight-ticket ballots were Democratic. In Bexar County, it was 56 percent. In Dallas County, the number was 60 percent.
Of course, the Dallas County Republican Party was happy to hear about the proposal:
"It would be a good thing to get rid of straight-ticket voting," said Jonathan Neerman, Dallas County Republican Party chairman. "It forces voters to become more informed and forces candidates to go directly to voters."
What do you think? Do you support straight-ticket voting?
