Fact Checking the Candidates: Bill Flores and Timothy Delasandro

by: liberaltexan

Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 10:28 PM CST

Claim: On cap and trade legislation Edwards could have "stood up in several committee sessions and said that we need to not let this get out of committee."

Check: The American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454), was passed by House of Representatives in June of 2009, and has yet to be voted on by the Senate. Before being voted on by the House, HR 2454 was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Education and Labor, Science and Technology, Transportation and Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Ways and Means. Congressman Edwards service on the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans' Affairs, and the House Committee on Budget. HR 2454 was not referred to any of the committees that Edwards is a member of, so it is doubtful that Edwards had any opportunity to object to the cap and trade legislation during a committee hearing.

Timothy Delasandro
During an interview with KBTX Channel 3, Timothy Delasandro made the following claims:

Claim: He is the only candidate that believes that the United States should withdraw from the United Nations.

Check: According to the campaign literature, none of the other four candidates has made withdrawing the United States from the United Nations an issue. Is criticizing the United States' membership in the United Nations a successful political strategy? According to a recent Gallup poll, only 26% of Americans feel that the UN is doing a "good job" compared to the 65% that believe it is doing a "poor job." However, when asked if the United States should give up its membership in the United Nations only 13% believed that it should. Criticizing the UN might be good politics, but the United States leaving the UN is not a significant issue to most Americans.

More Below the Fold...

Fact Checking the Candidates: Rob Curnock and Chuck Wilson

by: liberaltexan

Tue Feb 09, 2010 at 10:38 PM CST

Claim: Edwards voted to pull troops out of Iraq "in defeat."

Check: The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007, included a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and was passed by Congress but vetoed by the President George W. Bush. The bill included a provision requiring troop redeployment to begin within 120 days of enactment of the legislation and be completed by April 1, 2008. Considering the inability of those who continued to support the war in Iraq to define "victory," the claim that Congressman Edwards voted to pull troops out of Iraq "in defeat" is a purely political claim.

Claim: Edwards voted to keep partial birth abortion legal.

Check: Congressman Edwards voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which prohibits the procedure commonly known as partial-birth abortion, a procedure that is usually performed during the fifth month of gestation or later. This law was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the dissenting opinion that "the absence of a health exception burdens all women for whom it is relevant-women who, in the judgment of their doctors, require an intact D&E because other procedures would place their health at risk." The Edwards did vote to keep partial birth abortion legal is factual.

Claim: Edwards won reelection "barley by 4 ½ percent."

Check: Congressman Edwards defeated Curnock in the 2008 general election with 52.98% of the vote, and Curnock received 45.50% of the vote. In general the spread in which candidates are defeated is calculated by the determining the spread of the percentage, which in this case would be 7.48%. What Curnock is referring to is the 4.5% below 50% of the vote that he received. It should also be noted that Edwards received 19,011 more votes than Curnock who, in order to win, would have had to received 11,431 more votes than he received. The claim that Edwards won reelection by 4 ½ percent depends on the math, but the claim that Edwards barely won reelection is another purely political claim.

More Below the Fold...

Political Maneuvering Begins in Republican Primaries

by: liberaltexan

Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 07:59 PM CST

According to an article in the Eagle, Senator Ogden's office made a statement that there will be an announcement later this week about the upcoming election. Currently Ogden's campaign web site displays the Senator's statement from earlier this year in regards to not seeking reelection. Ben Bius, the only other Republican seeking the nomination for Senate District Five, made a statement in the Eagle article that the speculation about Ogden running for reelection is "completely unfounded and baseless."

Could it be a question of fundraising? According to Texas Ethics Commission records, Senator Ogden reported $737,578 cash on hand as of the July Semiannual campaign finance report, while Representative Gattis reported only $81,039 on hand as of the July Semiannual campaign finance report. However, according to the latest campaign finance report, Ben Bius has reported no campaign contributions. Even if Gattis is having a difficult time raising money before the primary it does not mean that he would have a difficult time raising money for a general election, and the likelihood that he would face a serious Democratic opponent is low.

More Below the Fold...

The Future of Texas Politics: The Past

by: MattTX

Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 10:49 AM CST

Texas is the second largest state in the Union, after California.

Texas has been, for several years, a majority minority state.

Texas has 34 electoral votes, which will increase to 37 or 38 for the 2012 Presidential Election.

On the Presidential level, Texas has been one of the primary pieces (if not the primary piece) in the Republican Electoral College puzzle for years.

On the State level, Texas has not voted for a Democratic candidate for anything Statewide since 1994.

Yet if we can extrapolate from current trends, at some point in next decade Texas will become a bona fide purple swing state. Then it will become a blue state. Then it will become a linchpin of the Democratic electoral coalition, and as Texas flips, modern Conservative Republicanism as we know it will face mortal danger.

First Draft of History

by: liberaltexan

Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 09:01 PM CDT

The SBOE appointed a panel of experts to advise the SBOE on the social studies curriculum, and points of debate include the role of the Bible and Christian influence on the founding of the United States; debates on which historical figures should be included in lesson plans, textbooks, and standardized tests. The debates about curriculum in Texas have been hyper partisan; a group of fundamentalist Christian social conservatives controls a majority voting block on the SBOE. This partisan divide has far reaching effects, as the curriculum standards, specifically the language used in text books, has a national impact because the text books purchased by Texas (the second largest purchaser of text books in the country) are often used as a model for other states text books.

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Stimulating Texas Politics…

by: liberaltexan

Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 08:42 PM CST

Last week former Vice Presidential candidate and current Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin endorsed Governor Rick Perry; this rings as strangely ironic since only a few months ago during the Presidential campaign Palin misquote former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to suggest why women should support her candidacy for Vice President.

"There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women."

Whether or not Palin's endorsement of Governor Perry will help his campaign remains to be seen, although primary voters in Texas Republican primaries tend to be dominated by the conservative base of the Republican Party.

Vince from Capitol Annex breaks down Palin's affect on the GOP primary:

Hutchison's only chance to win the GOP Primary-typically dominated by Christian conservatives-is to attract new voters to the primary. That means she'll be doing her best to get Democrats, liberal Republicans who don't vote in the GOP Primary, and independents into the primary. For Democrats who may cross over, Palin is poison, and it will turn both Democrats and independents away from Perry. It will, however, probably a wash for liberal Republicans who aren't typical GOP Primary voters.

More Stimulation Below...

Texas Legislative Watch: Limiting Choice to Limit Unintended Pregnancies

by: liberaltexan

Tue Feb 03, 2009 at 06:34 PM CST

Press Release from the Texas House of Representatives:

VILLARREAL AND VAN DE PUTTE TEAM UP TO PREVENT TEEN AND UNINTENDED PREGNANCIES
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, February 3, 2009

(SAN ANTONIO, TX) -- Representative Mike Villarreal (San Antonio) and Senator Leticia Van de Putte (San Antonio) jointly filed legislation aimed at reducing the teen birth rate in Bexar County and across Texas. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Texas has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation, with 63 births for every 1,000 female teens ages 15-19. This is more than 50 percent higher than the national average.

More below...

Texas Legislative Watch: Voting on Resolutions and Filing Bills

by: liberaltexan

Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 08:42 PM CST

The recent election and inauguration of Barack H. Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America is of great historical significance;
...As President Obama begins his term, it is fitting that the Texas Legislature send its regards congratulating him on his election.

SCR 9 was unanimously passed by voice vote.

Below: Notable Bills Filed Today in the Texas State House of Representatives

Texas Legislative Watch: The State of the State

by: liberaltexan

Tue Jan 27, 2009 at 09:07 PM CST

This afternoon Governor Rick Perry gave his state of the state address, and after thanking both the Lieutenant Governor and the new Speaker of the House, Governor Perry thanked former Speaker of the House (R) Tom Craddick for his "faithful service to the state." Afterwards Perry laid out what it is that he believes Texas has accomplished during his tenure, and also presented his legislative agenda for the next two years.

The Governor also used the opportunity to mention some of what he believes is Washington, D.C. failures (Perry mentioned the nation's capitol five times, included twice as failing and once as dragging its feet.); this could possibly be another snipe at Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as the Republican primary seems as though it has already begun.  Governor Perry went on to outline what he believes have been successes and would could be future successes.

Faith Based Initiative: Fundamentalist Religious Attack on Science in Texas

by: liberaltexan

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 07:59 PM CST

The Discovery Institute, the conservative Christian anti-science "think tank," posted an article in which the claim is made that it is actually the TFN that wants to "water down the teaching of evolution" and "remove the strengths and weaknesses language." The article goes on to claim that the 95% of scientist in the report only want "half of evolution taught" and "are seeking to limit the free flow of information and censor science." Another claim is that there are "valid and significant scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution that students need to know about. Evidence is not contingent on a consensus."

Teaching evolution in science class is not teaching half of evolution, because intelligent design is not half of the theory of evolution. Intelligent design is not science, in fact it does not even met the basic criteria of a scientific theory. Also, there is not a significant amount of scientific challenges to evolution that students need to be taught; Lawrence Krauss reviewed 10 million scientific articles and scientific citation indexes over twelve years and found that there were 88 articles about intelligent design and only 11 were not in engineering journals and out of those 8 out of 11 were critical of intelligent design and the remaining 3 were not in peer reviewed journals.

Other notable findings in the survey included that 89.7% of scientist surveyed believed that "modern evolutionary biology is largely correct in its essentials, but still has open questions for active scientific research." While 0% of scientists (none of the 464 survey recipients) believe that "modern evolutionary biology is completely wrong" and that "life was created essentially as we see it today." When asked if there was significant difference between creationism and intelligent design 78.2% said that there was no difference and 15.5% said that there was a difference.

This evening the Texas State Board of Education is conducting a public forum on current curriculum requiring students to be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories, and according to the Houston Chronicle "89 people had signed up to testify on the proposal, which also suggests encouraging middle school students to discuss alternative explanations for evolution."

Despite the voices of hundreds of scientist from Universities across the state, including conservative Christian colleges such as Baylor University, Dallas Baptist University, and Texas Christian University, there are still voices that insist that intelligent design and creationism is actually about science and not religion. In the same article Jonathan Saenz, a lobbyist for the conservative Christian organization Texas Free Market Foundation, said, "The reality is this issue is about evolution and teaching strengths and weaknesses of evolution. It's about science and teaching science right, regardless of what religious beliefs people have."