Tom Schieffer, who is currently exploring a run for Governor as a Democrat, announced the chairs for his campaign's leadership team earlier today.
The list includes former Texas House Speaker Pete Laney, Cameron County Democratic Party Chair and DNC member Gilberto Hinojosa, Austin political activist Susan Longley, former Ambassador to Sweden Lyndon Olson Jr (who is also Schieffer's campaign treasurer) and philanthrophist Alann Sampson.
Easily the most surprising name on the list for Schieffer, who has been criticized by many including myself for his close ties to former President George W. Bush, is State Rep. Senfronia Thompson.
Rep. Thompson, the Dean of Texas House Democrats, was first elected the same year Schieffer was elected state representative from Fort Worth.
Rep. Thompson had this to say about Schieffer, from the campaign's press release:
"Tom Schieffer and I were elected to the House of Representatives at the same time and we have been through a great deal together. I am sure that he is ready for any and all challenges that may present themselves as Governor of this great state."
While Schieffer still has some questions to answer about his support of George W. Bush and his committment to the Democratic Party, announcing support from respected party leaders is a good step towards establishing the credibility he will need to win next year's primary.
On another note, in April BOR criticized the bare-bones website that Scheiffer campaign had put up. At thet time, the campaign told us it was only temporary. Now, they finally have launched a new and (slightly) improved site: TomForTexas.com
Here is a little background from John Bender who worked with Speaker Pete Laney to make it possible for Austinites to see the session.
Matt,
I read your item about broadcasting legislative sessions on TV statewide. I'm the person who supervised the installation of cameras and cabling in the Capitol and arranged the first TV broadcasts of House sessions back in 1995 when Pete Laney was Speaker. We wanted to go statewide back then but ran into a lot of obstacles, some of which still exist.
The problem that cable companies pointed out back then was the limited number of channels and the part-time nature of legislative programming. Most systems back then didn't have a channel available for legislative sessions. And it was a programming nightmare because the legislature was only in session for five months every other year; the House and Senate were only in session Monday through Thursday most of the session; no one knew how long sessions would last each day; the House and Senate were often in session at the same time; and there could be as many as 10 committee hearings going at the same time with some of them lasting until 2 or 3 a.m. It was far too complicated for cable programmers to deal with. They felt they could not justify dedicating a channel to the legislature that could only provide sporadic programming for five out of 24 months. And using commercial broadcast stations was clearly out of the question because they couldn't afford to replace so much revenue-producing programming with free legislative coverage.
There were also concerns that debate on the House floor would simply become a series of campaign speeches aimed at voters back home watching on TV.
And there was a big money issue. While the House spent millions installing remotely controlled, broadcast-quality cameras, fiber optic cabling and a centralized control room that could remotely control cameras in as many as eight committee rooms at one time, there was still the issue of how to distribute the signal statewide. Back then, 1995-97, it was estimated that the cost of satellite transmission for an entire session would exceed $1 million. Who was going to pay for it? The cable industry certainly didn't volunteer and members were worried that they would be criticized for spending that much taxpayer money to put themselves on TV.
Without the money to distribute our signal statewide, our only option was putting it on locally in Austin. Fortunately, the City of Austin offered to let the House use the municipal channel whenever the House was in session. Even that was complicated because we had to arrange for microwave transmission of our signal from the Capitol to the Time-Warner control room and coordinate the switching between the House signal and the city signal.
Channel capacity is no longer an issue with digital cable systems but they don't reach the entire population. I don't know what the numbers are today but back in the mid-1990s, I think about 60 percent of households had cable TV. That raised the issue of whether it was fair to make legislative broadcasts only available to those who subscribed to cable. Also, some members didn't like the idea that viewers would have to pay to watch legislative sessions and that cable systems would make money off of selling something that taxpayers should get for free.
Because of all of these issues, we decided that the easiest and cheapest way to distribute video of House sessions was streaming over the Internet. And we did that at very low band width so even dial-up users could access it. Since the servers were limited to only 200 users at a time, we decided to archive all of the video permanently on our web site and make it accessible whenever people wanted to watch it. It was the best solution we could come up with at the time.
But times have changed and the technology has changed. Televising legislative sessions statewide is something that can be done and should be done but it is far more complicated than most people might think.
John
Thanks John for the e-mail and the great background.
Q: How do you feel about this particular set of leaders—or this particular leader, by which I mean Speaker Tom Craddick?
Each individual leader has his own style, but the membership lets that style exist. At least 76 of the 150 members dictate who sits in that position. I was very honored—a boy from Hale Center, a town of 2,200 people—to be in the office of Speaker of the House, but it wasn’t because of me; it was because of the other members of the House. I was their second choice. They were their own first choice, but I was their second choice.
So whatever else you can say about the way the House is being run, enough of the members buy into that philosophy.
Or have let it become the norm.
This is an incredibly important insight: "they were their own first choice, but I was their second choice." The House is run the way it is because the Members choose to allow it to be run that way.
One more key point from the interview:
I didn’t run the House like it’s being run now. My take on running it is that you do it in such a way that the members are able to represent their districts to the best of their ability. Their first obligation is to their districts. They’re not there to represent the Speaker, and they’re not there to represent a political party. Now, you can’t make them represent their districts, and you can’t make them work hard, but you can have a system whereby all 149 have the same equal access to the system.
After Robby Cook announced he would not run for re-election last night, there is a strong sense that the sky is falling. Before that gets too out of control let's take a breath and a step back for one second.
The current strength of the Democratic Party and successes in rural Texas should give any political naysayer pause.
Over the past 4 years, Democrats have won difficult seats and have learned valuable lessons. Democrats like Chuck Hopson, David Farabee, Joe Heflin, Juan Garcia, Allen Vaught, Stephen Frost, Mark Homer, Jim McReynolds, and others have all won in Republican regions.
In fact, we have seen this scenario play out before. In 2004, Speaker Pete Laney was targeted by Craddick again and won the election 58% to 41% with a tad over 43,500 people voting. When Speaker Laney retired after the 79th session, pundits and activists both wrote House District 85 off as dead. It was a lost cause and the pro-Craddick, pro-voucher, anti-family Jim Landtroop was the heir apparent. Instead, Joe Heflin won 49% to 48% with only 25,000 people coming to vote.
Now the anti-Craddick sentiment has been solidified and the Republican parties schizophrenia and out of touch public policy objectives give Democrats reason for hope in HD-17.
Just one day after Robby Cook announced he would not seek re-election candidates already began to pop up. From Capitol Inside:
Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald is one of the first names to emerge in Democratic circles as a potential replacement for Cook on the ballot next year. McDonald, who's been county judge for almost nine years, considered a race for the House four years ago when Cook appeared to be on the verge of switching parties while being wooed by Governor Rick Perry and other high-level Republicans. But McDonald decided to stay in his current position after Cook spurned the GOP and filed for re-election as a Democrat.
