In other words, even after this transportation nonsense has failed three times, Republicans in the Texas Legislature are still trying to force it through without outside input; kudos to Senator Patrick for voting against this insult to the public.After Dewhurst referred the bills to the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate recessed so the committee could briefly meet at the desk of Senate Finance Chairman Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands. In less than 3 minutes, the committee held a hearing on both bills. Nichols briefly explained both measures and Williams, surrounded by a small, standing group of Senators, legislative staffers and reporters, asked if there was any "public testimony." There was not. The committee then voted both bills to the Senate floor 10-1, with state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, voting no. [Emphasis ours]
“Sen. Patrick seems to think someone has appointed him Texas classroom czar, with the power to dictate to local teachers what they can and can’t do in their own classrooms,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network.Unfortunately, the Star-Telegram neglects to mention that grassroots pressure forced CSCOPE into the spotlight in November 2012, but Senator Patrick didn't get involved until January 2013.
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AG Abbott told me last night he has ordered a full investigation into C-Scope and if illegal action was taken by C-Scope he stated he will, "Shut them down completely" he said it is ok to tell others that too. Thank God for General Abbott.That works for me!!!
Bird contends that Republicans' confidence is based on elections in which only about half of the state has turned out to vote. “We’ll see what happens when we start to get 60 or 65 or 70 percent turnout. It’s going to look very different,”This is a point conservatives would do well to heed. The Obama campaign made it a priority to register marginal voters and get them to the polls. There's no reason to believe they couldn't make headway with a similar effort in Texas. The caution to Democrats, however, is that this is a double-edged sword. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of people who don't vote in every Church across this state.
Part of the reason that [the Obama campaign] won Florida in 2012 is that we had had a grassroots program running for six years with all the components — digital, communications, field, data, analytics — all of them put together into a 21st century modern campaign that worked for people's votes.Six years from today would mean that Democrats intend to compete statewide around 2018. That's not impossible, but it does mean there's plenty of time between now and then for events to intervene. Personally, we think the global economy will collapse before Battleground Texas has time to execute this plan; when that happens, it will reshuffle the deck of domestic politics in a way Battleground Texas doesn't anticipate.
We have to do that here. And it can’t just happen in one part of the state; it has to happen across the state. We need to touch places where we’re getting 25 percent of the vote and get 32 percent of the vote. It’s not necessarily about winning all those places, but we have to compete there. And then we have to have higher turnout in places that have already gone blue.The point about going from 25 percent to 32 percent in hostile territory is an interesting one Cahnman's Musings had not thought about. That's a good strategy in a vacuum. However, like we said earlier, it's a strategy that cuts both ways. We live in Austin, and there is an untapped pool of potential conservative voters right here. Both sides are going to work overtime to boost turnout.
In order to do this right, we’re going to have to raise the money, the grassroots money to do it and then ultimately transition that into a 21st century campaign with real organizers in neighborhoods working for every single vote.If you only take one point away from this post, make it this one: the left doesn't (yet) have the money to pull this off. The ONLY WAY they will get the money they need is if Republicans expand state government for them. That's how the left took over Colorado. That's why School Choice and Medicaid are such important fights. The left will only acquire the resources necessary to swing Texas if Republicans give them a bigger government from which to siphon money.
There are millions of kids in this state who are currently being denied access to health insurance because of the current governor.We have no idea what Bird's talking about, but our educated guess is that he's talking about Rick Perry's refusal to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. That's bizarre; Medicaid is a failed program that exploits the vulnerable. If Battleground Texas wants to make expanding substandard Health Care their central argument, go for it!
