The Democratic youth vote in Texas went up over 300% in 2008. Want to know what this surging demographic is up to next? Catch the movers and shakers of the Texas youth movement at the Texas Young Democrats Convention in Austin this weekend.
The convention will kick off Friday night with a fundraiser for the TYD at the Thistle Cafe from 7 to 10pm. Speakers will include state senator Leticia Van De Putte and Texas Democratic Party chairman Boyd Richie. The convention itself will run from the morning of Saturday, April 18 to noon on Sunday the 19th, at St. Edwards University's Ragsdale Center. Guest speakers for the convention will include Bill White and John Sharp, as well numerous representatives from various issue groups and the Texas Democratic Party -- and BOR's very own KT Musselman and Matt Glazer!
Also be sure to join the Texas College Democrats following the convention for lobby training at UT at 6pm in preparation for Monday's TCD Lobby Day.
For more information, hit up the convention web site at or email the Texas Young Democrats at texasyds@gmail.com.
Matt mentioned a little earlier that we pointed out over at the Blue that the Texas Ethics Commission was saying they hadn't gotten Van Os's filing for the state chair race. The story includes in the comments the text of the TEC's response to our inquiry on the state chair candidates.
If you want to have a prayer of taking our country back, HELP US TAKE TEXAS BACK.
Forget about the ceaseless cries for you to send your political donations to XYZ Congressional and Senate candidates.
Forget the DCCC and DSCC; they're not about restoring America to the people, they're just about fighting for more slices of the Beltway patronage chains.
Forget about DFA; they've turned Dean's Dream into a junior partner of the DCCC.
I've heard most of this before, but Van Os' shot at DFA sort of took me by surprise. Of all the organizations that would draw that sort of "sellout" accusation, I would not have imagined DFA would be on that list.
So I was curious: is this a common opinion? What do you guys think about DFA and what they do?
Has anyone ever heard of being "recognized for the purpose of..." as a proper limit of members' floor rights? I've done this a bit, and I don't remember this ever appearing in Mason's (or Robert's, for that matter), and indeed seems to violate the principle of Mason's Sec. 578 No. 2, where "the presiding officer may not refuse to put any motion that is in order."
Is there some part of the House Rules that I have missed that makes this a legitimate action of the speaker? Or has Craddick fabricated yet another parliamentary rule that never existed?
I've just written up a piece on the errors of parliamentary procedure that have been occurring over the past few days. I want to quote a part of that article here, for a very important purpose: Rep. Dunnam asked if there is "any recourse" to the chair's refusal to recognize the will of the body. All manuals of procedure I know of do give a way -- extreme, no doubt -- of circumventing the speaker when he no longer represents the will of the body. I quote the article's conclusion here:
