As video of the staged fights in a Corpus Christi State School hit national television, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is wasting no time placing blame. Her campaign put out this statement on Tuesday:
“The fight clubs that took place at one of Texas’ State Schools are a sad chapter in Texas history and further proof of Rick Perry’s failed leadership as Governor of this state. Perry was first notified that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating allegations of abuse in the state school system over four years ago. Since then, the problem has only gotten worse and Perry has done nothing to address it. All Texans deserve better than this appalling failure of leadership but specifically those who are the most vulnerable among us.” — Rick Wiley, Texans for Kay Campaign Manager
Meanwhile, Gov. Perry is looking to recapture some of his momentum from the Texas Tea Parties by participating in “Tea Party 2.0.” That’s right, no one can accuse the twitter-hooked Governor that he’s not keeping up with the times. Along with Gov. Mark Sanford of S. Carolina, Perry will host a tele-town hall Thursday. The Republican Governor’s Association expects about 30,000 people to participate by calling in listening to brief speeches by Perry and Sanford. They will then get to ask questions during a 1 hour long Q&A session.
Today, Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, came on the show to talk about his bill, HB 3, why he switched his vote on a legislative review of the State Board of Education and the possibility of the Governor actually signing on to public schools providing full time pre-K classes. Unfortunately, the Eissler humor didn’t shine through but he said I kept him dancing the whole time, he didn’t have time to insert his famed one-liners.
Harold Cook and Ted Delisi joined me to talk about the latest issues the lege has been dealing with. Since Delisi’s wife is chairwoman of the Transportation commission - we announced that conflict of interest before delving into the fate of TxDOT.
Rep. Homer should be thrilled to find out that he won our “Wild Bill of the Week” for his bill that would allow hunters use crossbows during bow hunting season. He told me it would help create a whole new generation of hunters AND boost the economy (always a selling point), as everyone will surely rush out to pick up their crossbows.
John Sharp, looking for a run at U.S. Senate, infers that Perry is a radical in his latest political ad on youtube. Quorum Report alerted us to this - here’s a look at the video.
Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell, told me today that she was misunderstood when she made what some are calling a “culturally insensitive” comment. During the committee hearing on voter ID, she told a Chinese-American who testified against the bill, that he and his “citizens” should consider adopting names for photo identification card that are easier for poll workers to understand. This came after Ramey Ko told her that naturalized Asian citizens were getting turned away from the polls because the translation of their names were often spelled differently on various documents. Here’s the exchange:
There are too many breaks during this debate..so I’m going to just make mini entries.
1:35-Sen. West and Sen. Williams are arguing over lack of public notice for the hearing on Voter I.D.
1:36-”The posting rule doesn’t apply to the Committee of the Whole,” said Rep. Tommy Williams
1:41-Van De Putte is delivering another soliloquy about the right of the public to have a posting
1:50-Gallegos tries to tag the senate bill for not providing 48 hour notice of the hearing
2:07-Fraser talking about the benefits of voter I.D. - Indiana increased voter rolls as did Georgia
2:24-Kirk Watson and Troy Fraser are going at it on the floor about the effects of SB 362 “Every person who walks in to vote will be allowed to vote,” said Fraser. “If they meet the new requirements,” said watson.
3:06-Shapleigh challenging the claims of voter fraud to Fraser. No expert testimony yet.
**Every Senator has their staffer sitting next to them on the floor.
Expect emotions to run high at the capitol tomorrow as the full Senate is expected to hear testimony related to the voter ID bill. Today, a bunch of Democrats compared voter ID to a poll tax and said it would only cost the state millions of dollars to prevent a fraud that doesn’t exist. As usual, Governor Perry wouldn’t give a conclusive answer to the legislation, but he said there were cases of fraud in the state (and then pointed me in the direction of the Attorney General for specifics). Stay tuned for a big day!
Though Perry and others are insisting they’re not thinking about future political aspirations at this point, one man is making no bones about his next move. Ted Cruz, the Solicitor General, is now setting his sights on the Attorney General’s job.
According to Public Policy Polling, if Gov. Perry and Sen. Hutchison were in the race today for Governor, Hutchison would leave Perry in the dust. The poll shows that likely Republican primary voters would vote 56-31 in favor of Hutchison. “Another problem for Perry is that Hutchison leads with every subgroup of the population PPP tracks by gender, race, and age,” PPP wrote on its website.
The Perry campaign website that urges citizens to take action against the stimulus package is slated to stay up a while longer as more bailouts are expected to come down the pipeline. Now that Perry has agreed to accept the stimulus money, some Democrats are calling his site hypocritical and unpatriotic. The reason: a flag on the left hand side of the screen dripping blood.
Since Perry was voted Scouting’s Distinguished Citizen in 2007 and he wrote the book “On My Honor,” stressing the importance of the Boy Scouts—I have one question: What would the Boy Scouts say?
