A report by the Pew Hispanic Center finds that the huge wave of immigration from Mexico not only seems to have come to an end but is also reversing itself. This is a remarkable development, one that would have seemed unthinkable even five years ago. Illegal immigrants are self-deporting back to Mexico.

One of the reasons is the softness of the U.S. housing market. The housing industry was a magnet for immigrants, and now the jobs aren’t available. The reverse migration will change politics. Border security and illegal immigration will diminish as front-burner issues. The border wall will turn out to have been unnecessary. The outflow of workers to Mexico will hamper the recovery of the housing market, and it will make new homes less affordable. Local schools and hospitals will be less burdened as the immigrant population disperses. These are just a few of the consequences that are foreseeable in the short term. Illegal immigration will continue to be an issue, but much of the heat will dissipate.

Tagged: immigration

I’m going to poach off the Trib predictions.

–Wentworth vs. Jones/Campbell

From the beginning I have been certain that Wentworth would win this race. What’s more, I think it’s important that he do so. TLR is getting too big for its britches. The danger for Wentworth is a runoff if Campbell gets enough votes. She has a strong right-wing following.

–The Senate race

This is another race in which I have never wavered. Dewhurst is going to win. Too much name I.D. and too much money. The Cruz campaign is a mirage.

–Chisum vs. Craddick

I’m going with Chisum. Newspaper endorsements matter in obscure races, and Chisum got the Morning News endorsement. More important, the industry is with him.

Kelly Hancock vs. Todd Smith

TLR is going to dump a ton of bucks on Hancock. If Smith can remain competitive in fundraising, it’ll be a fair fight. The interesting thing about this race is whether Perry’s endorsement will help Hancock or hurt him. Perry isn’t exactly a hot property right now.

Thanks to the Tribune for letting me play in your sandbox.

* * * *

What about other races coming up? The key House races are all about Straus chairs: Pitts, Eissler, Truitt. I don’t foresee any other upsets.

Louie, this is not the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

My general rule about polls is to accept that polling organizations, including PPP, are good at what they do and they seldom get it wrong. That said, I think they got it wrong. I don’t think this is a twelve-point race. I haven’t seen anything, in the debates or anywhere else, to suggest that Cruz is overtaking Dewhurst. Cruz will likely get a boost from Washington groups that are supporting him, but in general, this is a race that will be decided by name identification and money, and I don’t see how Cruz can match Dewhurst in two categories. Dewhurst has a solid conservative record, while Cruz doesn’t have a lot of accomplishments to brag about. I’m going to stick with my belief that Dewhurst will win this race, but I have to concede that PPP’s numbers surprise me:

Dewhurst 38%

Cruz 26%

Leppert 8%

James 7%

If these numbers hold, the race is headed for a runoff on July 31, when any Texan with good sense will be out of the state, and only hard-core base voters will turn out. That’s the winning scenario for Cruz.

* * * *

More from PPP:

It is the furthest right segment of the Republican electorate where Cruz is gaining momentum. Among Tea Party voters, he and Dewhurst are tied at 35%. Dewhurst is winning easily, 41-20, with non-Tea Party voters. There is also a bit of a generational divide, with Dewhurst leading by 26 points among seniors but holding only a 6-8 point lead among younger voters.

Public Policy Polling published its latest survey of Texas politics on Tuesday. Here are the numbers:

Texas primay

Romney 50%

Gingrich 43%

Paul 14%

Hispanic Voters

Obama 56%

Romney 34%

Young Voters

Obama  57%

Romney 35%

Tea Party voters

Romney 44%

Gingrich 38%

Evangelical voters

Romney 40%

Gingrich 45%

Perry Approval Rating

Approve 39%

Disapprove 53%

Independents

Approve 30%

Disapprove 62%

* * * *

Readers may recall the February UT/Texas Tribune poll in which respondents were asked whether they would support Rick Perry for governor in 2014:

Likely 39%

Unlikely 51%

“Very likely” 21%

“Very unlikely” 42%

The verdict of the poll was, “This is not the end of Rick Perry, but it is the end of Rick Perry’s invulnerability.”

The voters with the most intensity would not support Perry for reelection in 2014.

In addition to his own race for reelection to the House, Straus must fend off challenges to his committee chairs. Eleven chairs face primary opponents, including several who head top-tier committees (Appropriations, Ways & Means, and State Affairs). Conventional wisdom holds that Eissler, Pitts, Hamilton, Hopson, and Truitt have tough races, and there is always the unexpected (see Hubert Vo vs. Talmadge Heflin, 2003). This is a lot of ground for Straus to defend. Remember what happened when Craddick lost five seats in 2006. He was fatally wounded. Straus can’t afford for that to happen. He needs to get his team reelected. The Straus chairs who have primary opposition:

Bill Callegari (Government Efficiency & Reform)

Byron Cook (State Affairs)

John Davis (Economic & Small Business Development)

Rob Eissler (Public Education)

Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton (Licensing & Administrative Procedures)

Harvey Hildebran (Ways & Means)

Chuck Hopson (General Investigating & Ethics)

Sid Miller (Homeland Security & Public Safety)

Jim Pitts (Appropriations)

Allan Ritter (Natural Resources)

Vicki Truitt (Pensions, Investments, & Financial Services)

This was the headline of Patricia Kilday Hart’s strong column in the Houston Chronicle last week. It asks a good question. Her focus is on the Greater Houston Partnership. I asked a similar question a couple of years ago–why isn’t the business community more involved in state government?–and was subsequently invited to speak to the GHP.

I told them that on the previous day, 200 people from Lubbock were walking the halls of the Capitol extension, urging members to support Texas Tech’s campaign to become the next state’s next tier one university. My question to the GHP was, where were you? Why weren’t you in Austin supporting your hometown university? One person thanked me afterward. It was Renu Khator, the chancellor and president of the University of Houston.

I think the answer to Hart’s question is that there are no business leaders in this state. Ken Lay was the last one (as painful as it is for me to write that), and his business turned out to be a house of cards. The reason that today’s business leaders aren’t leaders is that Houston and Dallas have become outposts of Wall Street. The local banks are run by people who are sent to Texas, stay for five years, and recycle themselves somewhere else. They have no long-term stake in the success of their temporary place of residence, much less Texas; they only care about what they can contribute to their institution’s bottom line while they are here. The Greater Houston Partnership is a shell of what it used to be. George R. Brown would weep at its lack of influence. Bob Lanier must be appalled. It is just another Perry echo chamber. It is inconceivable that CEO Jeff Moseley would challenge Perry’s budget plans. If he dared to try, I suspect he would be out of a job.

Hart exposes just how weak (and meek) the Greater Houston Partnership is. She points out that the partnership adopts resolution after resolution supporting sound state policies–including “create new revenue streams to address the state budget shortfall.” But it’s just window dressing.  The minute Rick Perry says “sign my budget compact,” there is Moseley rushing to Perry’s side with the pen, giving him cover for fiscal policies that he knows are ruinous for the future of this state. Not educating kids. Not providing for water. Uttering prepackaged statements like, “The pro-business policies and accountable and responsible budgets adopted by Governor Perry and legislators have given Texas an enormous advantage when competing for high-paying jobs, and helped Houston prosper to become the top region for corporate relocations in the U.S. in two of the last five years, including in 2011, and these principles will keep us on that path blah blah blah.” Two of the last five years? Shouldn’t Houston do better than that?

As Hart writes, “The folks at the Greater Houston Partnership are well aware of the many ways the Texas Legislature – and our statewide elected officeholders – have failed to invest in the crucial infrastructure required for our exploding population.” Her column is a variation of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Everybody knows the emperor is naked, but no one will step forward and say so. Why don’t the state’s business leaders stand up to Rick Perry? Because there are none.

Tagged: Greater Houston Partnership, rick perry

Writing in The Eagle, the newspaper for Bryan-College Station, president emeritus Ray Bowen and distinguished alumnus John Hagler charge that A&M regents have “failed the university.” The article appeared on April 21, San Jacinto Day, the most important date on the Aggie calendar. This is the day on which Aggies around the world gather for Muster, a ceremony at which the A&M community honors those who have died in the past year. When their names are read, friends answer “here.” The publication date is no accident. It was a solemn article for a solemn occasion. Read the whole piece, but here’s a sample of what Bowen and Hagler believe:

Our university’s governance began to be corrupted when the governor’s appointment of regents was not primarily based on a candidate’s fiduciary loyalty to the university, on competence and on qualifications, but rather based on their personal and financial relationship with the governor. These practices have been broadly reported in the news outlets of our state.

As a consequence, these same regents have cost the taxpayers significant “settlement” sums for regent failures in presidential or chancellor selections. The damage has continued with ill-advised and counterproductive intrusions by both regents and the chancellor into the academic and administrative autonomy of our flagship, Texas A&M University. One chancellor, now departed, even explored combining his office with the presidency of Texas A&M University.

A highlight of irresponsibility came when our regents began to implement, in a secretive way, the half-baked proposals of a wealthy oil man and the pseudo think tank misnamed the Texas Public Policy Foundation. No one can be against controlling costs and teacher efficiency. But our university — one of the most administratively efficient and well-regarded universities in the state — should not have been the starting place for this discussion, and our regents failed everyone by rolling over without a peep and facilitating an illegitimate disruption of the university’s sanctioned mission.

Tagged: rick perry, Texas A&M, TPPF

Politicalwire.com has an online poll that asks the question, “Which Republican candidate ran the worst campaign?”

The editors write: This isn’t an easy question: Of the Republican presidential candidates, who ran the worst campaign? Explain your answer in the comments.

This email was circulated by a longtime Republican activist:

If you are in Travis County proper, we desperately need you to come the the Republican county convention  this Saturday because all hell is breaking loose with the street scum the RP people are recruiting to help them overturn the rules and then the leadership of the county convention and same on to state convention to elect delegates to the national convention. It’s not really about their favorite candidate any more but more about disruption and anarchy.

They are able to do this because our primaries have been pushed off so late the conventions are being held before the primaries, and all someone has to do is swear allegiance to the R Party and they get a little yellow card and are allowed in to the County convention, (which is divided into State Senate Districts  as soon as it begins–but that’s not important to understand right now) as if they had voted in the primary. We have no way of knowing for sure who they are. The libertarian party is required to file its list of attendees with the County Clerk, but they have not done so, and they will not give us their list. If people attend both, they will be prosecuted, but we would rather not have to do it after the fact that way.

Most of these people, however, are not libertarians, but just warm bodies or even Democrats who have been recruited to come. I am sure many of them have never voted in any election. Some have a reason–such as hating Bush, wanting drugs legalized or our military dismantled–and others, I honestly don’t know what their incentive is because they are apolitical and know nothing about anything. Some are 9-11 “truthers.”

I am on nominations committee for SD 14, and we interviewed hordes of people last night, most of them imposters with yellow cards, and we will have to do the same tonite. We don’t have to vote them in as delegates to the state convention but we do need to meet with them if they have their card and will wait hours to meet with us. They want to be delegates to state convention and lie about who recruited them and why. Many of them do not know there is a Senate race in Texas and have little speeches prepared about themselves and their “concern for our country” and the constitution.

They will have even more people this Saturday, and, being revolutionaries, they will have the numbers to take over if normal Republicans don’t show up.

Please pass along to your like-minded friends. I know it’s inconvenient, but it is as important as your vote in the primary and in November.

If it weren’t for the redistricting fiasco, this would not be happening.

The county convention will be at Hyde Park Baptist Church because we couldn’t find any other suitable facility for a group this large.

* * * *

This is the third time I have written about a possible “takeover” by the Ron Paul forces. I suspect that the fears are exaggerated, but there is clearly a lot of angst in Republican circles about the Paulbots. The church is in the middle of a quiet residential neighborhood, but it won’t be quiet tomorrow. Parking will be next to impossible. There is also a question of whether the Paul forces will  be invading county conventions across the state. We’ll know soon enough.

Tagged: ron paul