Texas Democratic Party: Moving Texas Forward

(Austin, TX) – Six Hispanic Republican State House members – five freshmen plus Aaron Peña, have formed a new caucus, the Hispanic Republican Conference of Texas [Source: Capitol Inside, 1/26/2011]. The only publicly-stated task of the caucus thus far is to examine filed legislation that deals with illegal immigration and voter identification. Presumably this includes Leo Berman’s “birther” bill, Van Taylor’s legislation targeting legal aliens who seek indigent care and Debbie Riddle’s attempt to bring an Arizona-style immigration law to Texas, which would violate the rights of citizens and cast blame on the entire Hispanic community.

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During yesterday’s marathon voter ID hearing, Sen. Judith Zaffirini found a unique way to make a very important point about flaws in the proposed legislation.

Sen. Zaffirini produced a large-sized version of a man’s Texas driver’s license, with the personal info blocked out. She told her fellow senators this was a current license belonging to someone on the Senate floor and invited everyone to “guess who”. There were no guesses, so Sen. Zaffirini revealed the license belonged to her chief of staff, known to all the senators and seated right next to her.

The point was made: Voter ID legislation assumes voters look like their driver’s license photo, and many of us do not. In Texas, your license is good for 6 years and you can renew your license online every other time you renew. And you can renew online up to 2 years after your license expires. This means a voter could present a driver’s license up to 14 years old – and many of us looked very different that many years ago. Case in point: these Texas Republican lawmakers. Compare their official state photos (all less than 14 years old and all currently used on the State House and Senate website) to what they actually look like these days.

If you were the election judge, would you allow these people to vote if they presented the photo ID at left, while looking like the photo at right?

We have a challenge/request to the bravest among our readers. Do you look almost nothing like your current Texas driver’s license photo? Email us two digital photos: one of your license and one of you. We will submit the entries as public testimony against SB 14 when the House hears the bill, and we might post your entries on this blog, too. If you’re up for it, email those photos to yellowdog@txdemocrats.org with the subject “Voter ID Photos”. We will crop out just the driver’s license photo so your name and personal information is hidden – or you can do that before sending to us.

Below is a statement from Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie on the Voter ID bill being heard in the Texas Senate today:

“It appears the ‘emergency item’ driving Rick Perry’s priorities is his quest to become a national GOP celebrity at any cost. While the Governor’s hair may be camera-ready, he only wants the spotlight when it suits his own partisan politics. When it comes to the real emergency – our state’s $27 billion budget deficit and massive program cuts – Perry tries to distract Texans with divisive issues that are not ‘emergencies’ at all.

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Below is a statement from Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie on the State of the Union address:

“President Obama’s thoughts on critical priorities for the future—to build our economy, create jobs and opportunity, and out-educate, out-innovate, and out-build our competitors – were especially resonant. The President spoke of dealing with the debt and the deficit in a responsible manner.

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We’re taking a look through the Senate’s version (click here, here and here to read all the budget documents) of the state budget and so far it’s just another variation on the theme the House introduced last week of drastic cuts to everything from public education to vital state services. As with the House version, the GOP budget writers in the Senate refused to tap into the Rainy Day Fund on the grounds that…well…no one really knows.

The only explanation given so far is the half-baked argument that we shouldn’t tap into that additional revenue now so that it’ll still be available “when it’s really needed”. The list of people who would take issue with the GOP’s definition of “when it’s really needed” is pretty amazingly long but would definitely include:

• The 100,000 public school employees who may lose their jobs.
• The parents who want to put their children into Pre-K programs that may no longer exist.
• Anyone who pays local property taxes, because according to budget expert Dale Craymer of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, “we’re likely to see property tax elections at the school district level explode over the next two years.”
• Biggie. Cause as we know, Mo Money=Mo Problems.
• Anyone who successfully completed third-grade math.

Which prompts the question – Is it possible that these Tea Partiers who so frequently reference the Founding Fathers (and by reference I mean “completely miss the point of everything they ever wrote or said”) are really serious about these budgets that appear to have been written based entirely on the Biggie School of Economic Thought? Or rather, are they playing political games with the budget, trying to use our genuine budget crisis to manufacture a fake crisis from which they’ll be able to “save” us from later in the session?

Today, Gov. Rick Perry expanded his list of “emergency items” for lawmakers to consider right away. While other legislation must wait 60 days after the start of session for consideration, Perry wants the legislature to “get cracking” on his emergency items – voter ID, “sanctuary cities”, eminent domain and balancing the federal budget (never mind the state, right? It’s not like we’re $27 billion in debt…).

In investigating Perry’s priorities, we found out there are several other “emergency items” he wants to declare. And so we bring you…

Rick Perry’s Emergency Items: The Lost Files

• Voter registration to be conducted solely at Tea Party rallies

• Replace social studies school textbooks with copies of Fed Up

• Year-round sales tax holiday on hair spray

• Replace a few lines in “Texas, our Texas” with praise for the Trans-Texas Corridor

• Dry-cleaning stipend for David Dewhurst, AKA the “Shirts Don’t Starch Themselves” Act

• House Transportation Committee to hear no bills until some special interest gives Linda Harper-Brown a free Maserati

• “Terror Babies” declared Official State Crazy Rant Topic

• Respond to all future EPA regulations with a lawsuit on the grounds of YEEEEEEEHAAAAA!

We’ve all heard the old saying about candidates campaigning in poetry and, when elected, governing in prose. Well, just moments ago, Governor Perry and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst were sworn-in and shortly Rep. Pitts will issue the first draft of the House version of the state budget. Thus we shall soon learn the answer to the question – just how much worse will it turn out for Texans when the people who are supposed to be governing are also campaigning?

Economists and local officials from Austin to Amarillo (ie – people who are not running for office) have been cautioning us that we’re in a dire budget situation. At the same time we have Perry (national book tour 22 months before 2012 elections) and Dewhurst (“I will have more to say about my future plans in the coming weeks”) trying to convince us that the hole they dug us into really isn’t all that deep.

As this legislative session evolves, we’ll learn more about just how severe the cuts will be to jobs, schools and services. Judging by how blatantly political their inaugural speeches (Dewhurst’s speech, Perry’s speech) were, we should probably brace ourselves for a heavy dose of bad poetry.

Below is a statement from Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie on the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Day:

“The recent tragic shooting in Arizona led many Americans to reflect on the importance of discourse that is civil while remaining impassioned.

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Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison just announced she will not seek re-election in 2012…seriously.  For real this time.  Ugh, who knows.

Notwithstanding the fact that her 37 previous declarations of resignation lasted about as long as my New Year’s resolution to eat healthier, let’s just play along and assume this time she means it.  The question on everyone’s mind is: who will have the honor of carrying Sen. Hutchison’s purse around once she can’t have “taxpayer-subsidized butlers” minding her essentials?  Well, maybe that’s the second concern on our minds.

The most important concern is that we offer Texans a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate who will give a strong voice to Texans’ priorities in Washington.  With Texas gaining four congressional seats, our state is in the spotlight and we deserve representation that lives up to the greatness of our people.  A political tide can turn very quickly (just look back at 2008) and I for one can’t wait to vote for a stellar Democratic U.S. Senate candidate.