Once a State Representative or Senator is done serving in the Texas legislature, it doesn't mean they are done working in the pink dome.
Texans for Public Justice has looked at 10 formerly elected officials including 8 Republicans and 2 Democrats. All 10 of these former State Representatives were serving in the House just this last session and now have gone through the revolving door to get huge payouts to lobby.
Texans for Public Justice looked at the 68 lobby contracts held by Mike Krusee, Fred Hill, Kyle Janek, Pat Haggerty, Corbin Van Arsdale, Dianne Delisi, Kevin Bailey, Robby Cook, Tony Goolsby and James Murphy currently have. Because of reporting laws, lobbyist are only required to disclose whether they fall within a range and not the specific amount the actual revenue from each lobby contract.
Lobbyist are only required to specify if they make less than $10,000, $10,001 to $24,999.99, $25,000 to $49,999.99, $50,000 to $99,999.99, $100,000 to $149,999.99, $150,000 to $199,999.99, $200,000 to $249,999.99, etc.
This makes it difficult to determine how much these 10 formerly elected officials are actually making.
Needless to say, these 10 men have 68 contracts and are currently getting paid anywhere from $2,025,000 to $3,890,000. Mike Krusee and Fred Hill appear to be the two highest paid former elected with Tony Goolsby and James Murphy rounding out the bottom.
In case any one is concerned how former lobbyist Todd Hunter is doing after taking a pay cut to work at the capitol again, don't worry too much. In 2007, Hunter had 4 lobby contracts that could have made him as much as $225,000. He should be okay for a little bit.
Senate District 17 has proved to be one of the most politically compelling stories of the election cycle. It all began with a series of deals, broken promises, and half-truths that centered around the coordinated exist of incumbent State Senator Kyle Janek (R). The scramble among Republicans to replace Janek has caused considerable bad blood in the conservative community.
Consider, for example, this excerpt from a post by Paul Burka (whose account of the bad blood in the race is an excellent primer in order to understand what exactly is going on among Republicans in the district):
To say that the race to fill the Houston-area state Senate seat being vacated by Kyle Janek has heated up is an understatement. Melted down is more like it.[...]
The real heat in this race is generated by what amounts to a Republican primary between Furse and Huffman for the right to take on Bell in a runoff. Janek has aroused some resentment by trying to handpick his successor. First he embraced former Houston oiler and TV commentator Spencer Tillman, only to find at the last minute that Tillman did not live in the district. Then he turned to Furse. This was too much for Jim Hotze, a former SREC member for District 17, who wrote a long article detailing Janek’s maneuvers for the Texas Conservative Review, an online newsletter edited by Gary Polland, whom Janek defeated to win his Senate seat.
Burka goes on to detail the exchange between the candidates. Go read the post, if you haven't already.
Meanwhile, Bell is doing well in the polls. He has over 40% support while Republican challengers are scrambling around the low teens between 8 and 12 points. Should the race go into a runoff (which is likely), Bell's high name ID and the bad blood amongst Republicans could provide a path to victory for Democrats.
Another Democrat, Stephanie Simmons, is running after successfully employing Republican Speaker Tom Craddick's parliamentarian Ron Wilson to ensure she stayed on the ballot. Questions still surround who is funding her race -- whether or not she is a stalking horse for Republicans to depress Bell's Democrat base turnout -- since D. Davenport Ron Wilson is her biggest public supporter.
We will have more details on Republicans in the race in the coming days.
Bell has high name ID, which is a major positive for him in the race. For now, we categorize the race as "Lean Bell" since we expect he'll easily have the most votes on November 4. In the coming weeks, we hope to have more quantitative information to show you why he could even win outright on Election Day.
Here are some links to previous coverage of the race on Burnt Orange Report:
The safest chamber in the Texas legislature is supposed to be the Texas Senate. It was drawn to give Republicans nearly two thirds of the 31 seats. While we have won over and over again in state House races, the Senate remained static. Even though we turned Dallas blue, the Senate remained static. Those seats were drawn to protect incumbents (especially Republicans), but 2008 seems different.
The lines are the same, but now it is possible for Democrats to make it a 17 to 14 Democratic minority for the first time in years.
Wendy Davis is challenging Kim Brimer, Joe Jaworski is taking on "Toxic" Mike Jackson, and now an unnamed Democrat will campaign against three Republicans in Senate District 17.
Senate District 17 now looks like one of the most interesting races in the state because of its effect on surrounding races. A strong candidate in SD-17 will help Hubert Vo who has a large overlap. It could reasonably effect Larry Joe Doherty in CD-10 and Mike Skelley in CD-7 by mobilizing Democrats in conservative parts of their districts (the northern part of SD-17 overlaps with both CD-10 and CD-7 and yesterdays poll indicates CD-10 is receptive to LJD). Not to mention having another Houston race will absolutely help native son Rick Noriega in his bid to defeat Big John Cornyn.
It will help the Houston Democratic Coordinated Campaign and candidates like Sherri Matula, Joel Redman, and Kristi Thibaut run for the Texas House. It will help Diane Trautman take on uber scary Republican Tax Assessor Collector Paul Bettencourt. Not to mention the judicial candidates and other down ballot races that will get a bump by having an aggressive campaign in SD-17.
When Rick Perry called the special election to fill Sen. Kyle Janek's recently vacated seat for November 4, he may have helped Democrats more than he meant to. Maybe that is why he was only able to get 39% in 2006.
Before we go into the Democratic side of things, lets talk Republicans. According to Kuff, the R's now have three declared candidates- Joan Huffman, a former felony court judge, Houston lawyer Grant Harpold and Houston businessman Austen Furse. None of these three have any real name ID and it doesn't appear they have a strong fundraising network or activist base. None currently hold a political office and having a judge run against a lawyer might require Harpold to go negative against Huffman in order to show a contrast between the two.
As for the Democrats, although he isn't in yet, the name that keeps popping up is former Congressman Chris Bell. Since the election is November 4, Rep. Scott Hochberg would be required by law to vacate his state house seat and Texas could ill afford to lose Hochberg in the House. He is a leader and is especially good at education policy.
Good news is, Bell seems to be a solid candidate and one that can win Senate District 17. Polls indicate he has huge name ID (74% of those polled knew Chris Bell) and the numbers get better in a head to head poll.
Bell leads Furse, 40 percent to 26.5 percent, in a head to head question. Part of Bell's favorable results stem from Republicans unhappy with Republican elected officials, Stanford writes. While 53.2 percent disapprove of President Bush's job performance, an even higher percentage, 60.3 percent, disapprove of Gov. Perry's job performance. Meanwhile, 63 percent said the country is on the wrong track.
Stanford goes on to write that the poll results indicate up to 20 percent of the Republican base could be persuaded to vote for Bell. Furthermore, Stanford writes that Bell's history of standing up to Tom DeLay makes most Democrats and close to a majority of independents more inclined to vote for Bell.
Jeff Smith of Opinion Analysts (the firm conducting the poll) also noted high favorable ratings for Bell. He wrote that Bell's 30 percent favorable rating surpasses the 20 percent for Janek. "Bell's high visibility would give him a big advantage over the field at the outset and a stable base on which to build for the election," Smith wrote. "The combination of Bell's visibility and the voters' disenchantment with the Republican state legislature propel Bell to comfortable margins in both uninformed and informed trial heats with candidates clearly identified by party affiliation. Should he enter the race, Chris Bell would be the immediate frontrunner in a very winnable contest."
Check out the Stanford summary here.
Check out the Smith summary here.
(emphasis added)
Looking at past election results proves this point. In 2006, Janek ran against a Libertarian and won 77.82% to 22.17%. That's right Libertarian Phil Kurtz received almost a quarter of the total vote. In 2002, Janek got 61.42% against Democrat Ronnie Ellen Harrison who earned 38.57%. This is the election that swept Republicans into office across the country (this was the same year Nick Lampson lost his bid for re-election) and Janek only got 61.42% of the vote event though Harrison spent under $30,000.
Janek's retirement and Perry's politically motivated move to call the special election on November 4 means Democrats stand a good chance to turn Harris County blue and cut the margins in the Senate. Chris Bell's popularity and infusion of money in SD-17 would help every Democrat in the area and the votes that money would drive out would inevitably help Democrats up and down the ballot. We need Chris Bell to run for this seat and help us turn Texas blue.
The last day to file for the special election is August 29. In the next few weeks we will begin researching the Republicans who have filed and let you know more as this race unfolds.
While the "Run Chris! Run" Diaries just keep popping up (here and here and apologies to others that I might have missed), let me add another one with some optimistic numbers.
The numbers below the fold show the congressional districts within SD-17. In all 6 races in 2004, Republicans contested the seats, so the Republican values in the table are the 2004 results. However, Democrats did not contest CD-14 and for practical purposes CD-10. Richard Morrison was also under-funded in CD-22. Hence, to estimate how the Democrats might have done in 2004 had they been highly-funded (estimation denoted by *), I extrapolated the values from the Democratic 2006 percentages based upon the Republican totals.
Now that repub State Senator Kyle Janek has officially (read: finally) resigned, we've got to get down to the business of making this a competitive race where we can begin our long journey back to majority in the Texas Senate.
Regardless of when Perry calls the special election (though it will surely be November 4th), it is imperative that Texas Democrats unite behind a quality candidate from Day 1 to maximize our opportunity to pick up this seat.
From the onset of the 2006 race for Governor of Texas, I have been openly harsh and critical of Chris Bell in public and in private.
But this is a race tailor-made for Chris Bell. It plays to all of his strengths, minimizes any chance for the exploitation of his weaknesses and is the type of district and constituency where Chris Bell has a proven record of raising money, building constituencies and earning election.
No Texas Democrat is better prepared from both political and public policy ends to pick up this senate seat and serve effectively in the legislature.
State Senator Kyle Janek (R- Houston) finally resigned. Not a big story. The question was never a matter of if but when. Now we have that answer so there is a new question, when will Rick Perry call the special election?
There are two options, sometime before November or November 4 during the general
election. As Kuff pontificates the only reason Perry would call a special would be aid his favorite Republican candidate.
Currently the crowd is one man, Republican activist Austen Furse. However there is speculation that Craddick Lieutenant, State Rep. Charlie Howard (R- Sugar Land) may enter the race. On the Democratic side, the two men rumored to be looking at the race are Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) and former Congressman and our Democratic Nominee for Governor Chris Bell.
The one constant in this race is if Rick Perry keeps the election set for November 4th, then both Howard and Hochberg would be forced to resign from their House seats. Both are leaders of their party and a resignation from either would be a boon for their opposition. This realization makes Rick Casey's article on this race particularly interesting.
Casey writes in Tuesday's Chronicle about a poll showing Chris Bell with a huge lead in SD-17.
A recent poll shows Bell at 43% and Furse at 29%.
...a poll of the district a couple of weeks ago which provided some enticing numbers in a race between Bell and Furse, whom the poll identified as a conservative Houston businessman who served as a policy advisor to the first President Bush.
[...]
Furse's dismal showing is partly the result of lack of name recognition, which would be cured by a well-funded campaign. If the trial lawyers generously funded Bell, the business community, including Texans for Lawsuit Reform, could be counted on to be at least as generous for Furse, or for some other Republican on the ballot.
Let's be honest here. These results are hugely important. Harris County is poised to over-perform because of the combination of factors- Rick Noriega is from Houston, the Harris County coordinated campaign, and competitive House races through out the county. Having a candidate with strong name ID creates the possibility of having three Senate Seats in play (Wendy Davis vs. Kim Brimer, Joe Jaworski vs. Toxic Mike Jackson, and the open SD-17 seat). In one cycle we are on the brink of having a 17-14 split in the Senate instead of the current 20-11 Republican advantage.
Now we have to wait and see what political games Rick Perry wants to play with Texas voters.
Gardner Selby over at the Austin American-Statesman puts out the word that former Democratic candidate for Governor Chris Bell may be throwing his hat into the ring for Kyle Janek's soon to be vacated State Senate seat in Houston. Janek has previously announced he would resign his seat in June, prior to completing his term.
Austin's State Senator Kirk Watson offered the following commentary.
"I've known Chris a long time, and was excited about the prospect he might consider it. I talked to him on Saturday," Watson said.
"He would be a formidable candidate in that district because of his length of service in the Houston area," Watson said, referring to Bell's background as a one-term U.S. House member and before that as a member of the Houston City Council who ran for mayor.
"My guess is he'd start that race with the sort of name ID that an incumbent usually enjoys, maybe even better than an incumbent," Watson said.
A special election date has not been set as Janek hasn't actually resigned yet. Another Democratic contender (according to Selby's piece) may be Rep. Scott Hochberg (who would have to choose whether to run for Senate or House if the special election coincided with the November general election). Potential Republican candidates include Rep. Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land, Gary Polland, former Harris County Republican Party chair, Grant Harpold, a precinct chairman, and Houston money manager Austen Furse.
As gerrymandered as all Texas seats are to be incumbent protection plans, SD-17 is one of the very few that could be considered "swing" at all (we have a very distorted view of swing in Texas sadly....). Demographically, it has an Anglo population of only 53% (21% Hispanic, 14% Black) and the "Bill Moody Highwater Line" is 46.1% from the 2006 election. More from Selby...
If Bell seeks the seat, he'll enter knowing Perry won 39 percent of the district vote in 2002, with Bell drawing 30 percent and independents Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman trailing.
In the closest non-judicial statewide race in the Senate district, Elizabeth Ames Jones won her race for the Texas Railroad Commission with 56.5 percent of the vote. Democrat Dale Henry took 43.5 percent.
With Republican state Sen. Kyle Janek's retirement set for June 2, several Republicans along with one notable Democrat are considering the race.
Once Janek retires, Gov. Perry will have the option to either hold the election on November 4 (Election Day) or he can call an emergency and set it for another day.
Recent history has shown that "emergencies" tend to only be called in instances that are politically beneficial to Republicans.
Remember when the late Rep. Joe Moreno's seat was left vacant during special sessions in 2005? That was a 100% politically motivated decision that only served to disenfranchise thousands of Houstonians for months.
In this case, as R.G. Ratcliffe explains, the conventional wisdom goes that the Democratic candidate would benefit from the expected high turnout on November 4.
However, the twist here is the guy who appears to be our best candidate, Rep. Scott Hochberg, will only run if a special election is called since he does not want to risk his spot in the House.
Of course, there may very well be another Democrat besides Hochberg who is willing to run if the election is held on November 4. I just haven't heard any names. Anyone hear anything? There must be a couple good candidates willing to run for an open senate seat in a district that while tough is certainly winnable.
Perry's decision on when to hold the election will be an important one. While it may go against the conventional turnout wisdom, I for one would love to see Scott Hochberg have a shot at a senate seat sometime early this fall. I would take Hochberg's superb record in the House against the likes of the two Republicans (businesmanAustin Furse and former Harris County GOP Chair Gary Polland) who are considering the race. St. Rep. Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land) is also considering the race but, like Hochberg, will only run if its a special election.
In case you weren't sure that running everywhere is a winning prescription for Democrats, Hochberg cites Michael Skelly's plans to run an aggressive race against Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. John Culberson as one of the reasons that SD17 can be won by a Democrat.
Hochberg is one of the best public education advocates in the state and we could certainly use him in the senate. At this point, however, we can only wait to see what the Governor's office does.
Big news in that one of Texas' state senators on the GOP side will announce tomorrow he's resigning mid-term.
Houston Chronicle: There has been speculation for several months that Janek, an anesthesiologist, wouldn't complete his current four-year term, and it increased when he enrolled his young sons in an Austin school last fall.
Janek wouldn't confirm his plans, other than to say will have a news conference at the Capitol on Tuesday.
"I had a conference call with some of my Senate colleagues about 45 minutes ago,'' he said. "I discussed my future with them, and I'm going to lay it all bare tomorrow at a press conference.''
So now the jockeying begins to fill his seat. Can you say Representative John Zerwas? Granted, Zerwas doesn't live in SD-17, but when did that ever stop a Houston area politician? Zerwas and Janek are both anesthesiologists and practiced together previously. Two more potential GOP candidates: State Representative Dennis Bonnen of Angleton and Representative Charlie Howard of Sugar Land. We're sure that more will appear on the horizon soon.
Update: Here is a trivia question for you all. Hat-tip to a reader who reminded me of this.
Q: Who beat Kyle Janek in his first run to the Texas House in 1992?
Houston Senator Kyle Janek has told Quorum Report that he is getting votes together to filibuster the budget. After reading this, I was confused why a Republican Senator would try to force a special session and wade in on the drama in the House.
After talking with people around the capitol and listening to others chat, the rumor and supposition is this is actually a battle between Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Speaker (for now) Tom Craddick. The two have rarely seen eye to eye, and it is well known around the Capitol that the two are not friends.
The reason Janek et al. will want to kill the budget is that Dewhurst doesn't believe Craddick can survive through a special session. The Republican infighting has now officially spread from one chamber to the other. Clearly, Craddick is doing irreparable harm to the Texas House of Representatives.
I wonder when the Governor will chime in with his position.
