After the members of the House took the oath of office this afternoon, they heard from two of the state’s leaders. One was Joe Straus, who had just won a third term as speaker, this time by acclamation. The other was Rick Perry, who is presumed to be running for president in 2016.

If you didn’t know them, you would have thought Straus was the one running for higher office, not Perry. The governor spent a little bit of time reminiscing about the days when he was in the House and recycling issues he has championed in the past: a stricter constitutional limit on spending that did not get much traction when he first pushed it; requiring drug testing for people seeking welfare and unemployment benefits (which would ultimately punish the children of the state’s most vulnerable citizens, if a parent is denied benefits); a bill to prevent abortions in the first twenty weeks based on the unproven argument that a fetus can experience pain at that stage of development; and a vague proposal for “tax relief” in a state whose residents already enjoy the lowest tax burden in the country. I had the sense that he was mailing his remarks in.

Straus challenged members to address the biggest issues facing the state, starting with profound demographic change. “Our rapid growth requires a steadfast commitment to the core responsibilities of government,” he said, “such as a quality education, a reliable water supply, a healthy transportation system, and an honest state budget.” He received a loud ovation for his attack on standardized testing: “Teachers and parents worry that we have sacrificed classroom inspiration for rote memorization. The goal of every teacher is to develop in students a lifelong love of learning, and we need to get back to that goal in the classroom. To parents and educators concerned about excessive testing — the Texas House has heard you.”

This stance will, in due course, bring Straus into conflict with Perry, who, along with various business groups, has been a strong advocate of the state’s accountability system based on standardized tests. If last session is any guide, Perry will ensure that his agenda receives action by labeling his proposals as “emergencies,” thereby bumping them up to the top of a special calendar. Yet one issue that Perry did not raise in his remarks to the House was school choice, the pet issue that has been embraced by Senator Dan Patrick and Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst. Whether the omission was deliberate or by chance remains to be seen, but it was probably wise of Perry to avoid it. The House has a long history of being a burial ground for school vouchers, with members as diverse as Charlie Geren and David Simpson among the opposition.

As I watched Straus speak, I felt as if he was going from presiding over the chamber to leading it. His emergence as a leader raises the stakes for the session. For the first time in awhile, one of the state’s leaders has stepped forward to grab the state’s biggest issues by the throat.

This first day definitely hinted at conflicts to come over the next 139. The session is setting up as a battle between those who want to address the state’s biggest issues and those who want to rachet down spending even after the comptroller’s revenue estimate validated predictions that the state would have a large surplus. In other words: Straus v. Perry.

Tagged: 2013, Joe Straus, rick perry

Last week Michael Quinn Sullivan posted a story on the Empower Texans web site headlined “Toxic Joe.” The reference, of course, is to Joe Straus, the speaker of the House, whom Sullivan has tried to remove from power, with nothing to show for his efforts. The Sullivan-imposed nickname of “Toxic Joe” is full of irony, because if there were a poll of who is the most-toxic person in the Capitol, Sullivan would win, hands-down (and be proud of it).

Sullivan’s writing style relies heavily on inuendo. A typical example:

With the race for the leadership of the Texas House heating up, many are feigning surprise that incumbent moderate Joe Straus hasn’t released a list of supporters despite increasingly brittle claims of invincibility.

Of course, what Sullivan is trying to do here is to create an impression of weakness in the Straus camp — as if to say, Straus must not be doing well because he hasn’t released a list of supporters. Why would Straus do so? Why would the frontrunner reveal to his enemies the names of his supporters, so that Sullivan can rally the tea parties to excoriate those who support the speaker?

Sullivan goes on to say, allegedly quoting unnamed Straus supporters, that “Team Straus recognizes that the speaker is ‘toxic’ with the grassroots. That’s the word used in at least a dozen conversations over the last several weeks by a handful of Straus supporters trying to bring more lawmakers to their side.”

It’s no secret that some of the activists in the Republican party–tea parties, precinct chairs, county chairs, leaders of grass-roots organizations–are not Straus fans. But the activists can’t vote in a speaker’s race. What they have done in the past, and will probably try to do again, is try to bully weak-minded members into supporting David Simpson, who is Straus’s only announced challenger, now that Bryan Hughes has given up the ghost and endorsed Simpson.

Here is more innuendo from Sullivan’s article:

One incumbent legislator told a colleague that the speaker didn’t want his “many supporters” to feel heat from the grassroots during December.

It’s an interesting strategy, and a telling admission. They know voters have little confidence in Mr. Straus’ leadership, and yet are so beholden to appeasing the cronies Straus represents, they’re working to get others to betray their constituents!

Unfortunately for Sullivan — and Simpson — “voters” don’t matter. They can vote in primaries, they can vote in general elections, but not in speaker’s races. Try as he might, he can’t change the constitutional imperative that “the House of Representatives shall, when it first assembles, organize temporarily and proceed to the election of a speaker from its own members.” The constitution doesn’t mention “activists” or “voters.” Only 150 people can cast a vote in a speaker’s race and it will take 76 of them to stop Joe Straus from winning a third term. And Sullivan doesn’t have 76 votes. In fact, if Straus’s hold on the speakership is so slight, why hasn’t Sullivan produced the names of 76 members who won’t vote for Straus?

During the last legislative session, Mr. Simpson took to the floor of the House decrying Straus’ inconsistent application of House rules.

Since then, Mr. Simpson has spoken out against the Straus leadership team’s use of redistricting as a weapon of revenge against legislators.

Mr. Simpson knows a thing or two about beating powerful incumbents. He entered the legislature by defeating one of Joe Straus’ closest allies, Tommy Merritt. This year, the Straus Team had Merritt try to retake the seat, only to be easily defeated by Mr. Simpson.

The race is far from over, and the advantages an incumbent House Speaker wields are not inconsequential. Yet by having not released the names of his supporters and daily acknowledging his toxicity, the case gets stronger that Joe Straus has neither the popular appeal, nor even the internal support, to continue as Speaker.

Sadly, only two dozen of the 95 Republicans have scheduled the GOP Platform-required town hall meetings with their constituents to discuss leadership issues. Time is short, since these meetings are supposed to happen before the start of the legislative session in early January.

* * * *

Mr. Sullivan’s innuendo-heavy attack on Straus is cleverly worded to create the impression that Straus is in trouble. I don’t buy a bit of it. I repeat what I said in an earlier post: Neither Bryan Hughes nor David Simpson has the gravitas to be elected speaker of the House.

What is strange to me is that Mr. Sullivan keeps the pot boiling, knowing that he has lost. He knows that Mr. Simpson is too green and too untutored to be speaker. Yet he keeps up an attack on Straus that is doomed to fail. He has tried and tried to find a way that the activists can pressure Republican members to vote against Straus, but he has met with nothing but failure. I can only assume that Sullivan is playing to the gallery here — the gallery being his readers across the state who believe the innuendo-filled nonsense that Straus is on the ropes. The game is lost, Sullivan has no candidate for speaker, and he hasn’t made a dent in Straus’s support. The more he rails against Straus, the more he relegates himself to the status of paper tiger.

Finally, Sullivan is wrong when he says the race is far from over. As I write, it is December 11. Two weeks to Christmas, one week to New Year’s, and one week to the vote for speaker on January 8 — and the end of David Simpson’s quixotic race for speaker.

Tagged: David Simpson, Joe Straus, michael quinn sullivan

In reading the last couple of days of convention coverage, I found two key takeaways that have been overlooked:

(1) Rick Perry is still very strong with the base of his party. He still connects with the rank and file when he makes a rousing speech, as he did at the convention in Fort Worth. Of course, Perry was addressing the 18,000 strongest and most loyal Republicans, and there was confusion about whether the boos when Perry spoke up for David Dewhurst, his choice for U.S. senator, were for Perry or for Dewhurst, or both. But Perry’s statement that he did not intend to ride off into the sunset was a warning shot across the bows of the wannabes, most prominent among them Greg Abbott.

It is still unclear (as it has been since he left the presidential race) whether Perry is just trying to find a way to remain relevant, or if he has any kind of plan other than his expressed interest in running for president in 2016.

(2) The second most important takeaway from the Republican convention is that the platform seeks to change the way the speaker is selected. The platform urges that the pledge card system, in use since at least the 1960s, be scrapped. Lawmakers give speaker candidates a leg up on the next election by signing pledge cards to signify that they will support a particular speaker candidate–usually the incumbent–in the next session. Obviously, the greatest beneficiary of this system is the incumbent speaker, who discovers who is for him and who is not (although any speaker worth his salt already knows). The platform would further urge that the speaker be elected by a secret ballot, thus making it less likely that a victorious speaker candidate can rain retribution on a member through punitive committee assignments. Next, the platform calls on lawmakers to do away with the pledge card system in which lawmakers swear fealty to an incumbent speaker in exchange for presumed favors to be granted at some future time. Finally, it urges Republican legislators to vote for speaker in caucus by secret ballot to protect members on the losing side. Note that this system applies to Republican members only. In 2011, the Republican members did vote for speaker, in a closed-door meeting, but the rules called for members opposing Joe Straus, the incumbent speaker, to stand if they were opposed to giving him another term. Obviously, this process was not akin to a secret ballot.

Readers with long memories will recall that the means of choosing a speaker was debated in the days leading up to the Eighty-first Legislature. The key issue was an amendment by Geren for a secret ballot on the choice of speaker. But the vote on the Geren amendment had to be public, and the incumbent speaker, Tom Craddick, had enough votes to prevail. I stress again that any speaker worth his salt does not need a vote to know who is for him and who isn’t.

Typically, a speaker’s race is decided when a candidate lays out his or her votes and the number is greater than 76. This was not the case in the Eighty-first Legislature, when election day passed without Craddick, the incumbent, laying out his votes. Craddick twisted in the wind during the weeks between election day and the convening of the Eighty-second Legislature, and when it became clear that he did not have the votes, he relinquished the chair.

It is inevitable in the age of the social media and the 24-hour news cycle that old forms of politics are going to give way to new ones. Members of the public are going to claim their right to be involved in the selection of the speaker, although ultimately their only tool is to persuade members how they should vote, and if what occurred in the weeks leading up to the Eighty-second session, that persuasion is likely to be none too polite.

In the end, the choice of the speaker will be made by the members, not by the public. The process may be different, but the outcome is likely to be the same as it was in the days when pledge cards were the deciding factor. The point is–let me repeat–any speaker worth his salt doesn’t need a pledge card, or the absence of one, to know who is for him or who is against him. Every speaker has a “team.” The speaker knows who is on his team. Bryan Hughes is challenging Straus for speaker (and other candidates may arise), but Straus knew long before Hughes announced his intentions that Hughes was against him.

The desire to be on the “team” is sewn into human nature. People want to be on the team because they want to get things done, or because they share a point of view with other members of the team, or just because it is natural to want to be on the prevailing side.

That will be true in the next speaker’s race, and in the one after that, and in the one after that. The members who are on the outside can do nothing to change their status. This is how politics works.

The likelihood is that, when all the ballots have been counted on election day, Joe Straus will have enough support to be elected speaker. He will have most of the Republicans and many of the Democrats, who have no one else to turn to, short of making a Faustian bargain with the Republicans. (A number of Democrats made such a bargain with Craddick, and they prospered for awhile, but in the end they had to rejoin the Democratic ranks or face defeat. It could happen again.)

The pledge card system, which has lasted half a century, will not last forever. Nothing does. The most ideological Republicans want to change the system so that it benefits Republicans and only Republicans–and in particular, not the elected class, but the agitators and the pressure groups who want to bully politicians into doing their dirty work. A lot of people believe, as I do, that Texas politics is headed on a course that will inevitably result in the replication here of the way Washington works, where the majority party controls everything. I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, remember, politics never stands still.

Tagged: gop convention, Joe Straus, rick perry, speaker's race

This is an analysis of the race that was developed by the Paddie camp. It is published as it was sent to me. Quoting the analysis:

Basically the district can be divided into 3 parts:

1). Christian base. This is Shelby and Sabine [counties] that are currently in Christian’s District.  In the last GOP primary, these two combine for 26% of the vote of the newly configured district.

2). Neutral. This is Cass and Marion which are now in HD 1.  George Lavender [the incumbent in HD 1 --pb] is not endorsing in this race.  These two combine for 17.69% of the vote.  Like Paddie’s Harrison County, they are on the North part of the district.

3). Paddie base. Paddie is Mayor of Marshall, the biggest county, and broadcasts his radio show countywide.  This county alone, was a huge 44% of the 2008 vote, 39.37% of the 2010 vote.  But Paddie grew up and graduated from High School in Carthage, Panola County.  His family runs the radio station there in Carthage. Panola had 17.18% of the vote in 2010.  These two Paddie “base” counties combined for 56.31% of the vote (of the new district) in 2010.  Paddie also lived in Shelby County (Christian’s home) and is not without support there, but would likely cede most of the support there to Christian.

So, the scenario [which I described in yesterday's post--pb] of the smaller counties ganging up against the big county is quite less likely in this district.  Paddie will be the hometown favorite for more than 56% of the Republican voters and he has a better than even chance of getting his share of his next door neighbors Cass and Marion.  Jefferson, Texas (Marion County) is 17 miles from Marshall and 72 miles away from Center, where Christian lives.  Linden (County seat of Cass) is a full 100 miles away from Christian’s hometown but a short drive for Paddie.

To summarize, Paddie starts out with a 20% advantage in home county GOP vote size.  When you extend to their broader bases, the advantage goes to +30% for Paddie.

And the two remaining smaller counties do not provide much comfort for Christian.  They are clearly in Paddie’s backyard.  Any appeal to “I am from a small county and so are you” would probably not be too effective.

[end of analysis]

My comment:

No one should be surprised that the district has been drawn in a way that makes it difficult for Christian to be reelected. Clearly, the Straus team would like to see someone else representing HD-9. What I don’t know is whether Solomons et al drew the district with the aim of eliminating Christian, or whether the population numbers were such that the district fell into place naturally. There really wasn’t anywhere for the district to go. It was blocked on the east by the Louisiana state line, on the north by HD-1, on the south by the Golden Triangle, and on the west by the relatively large counties of Nacogdoches and Rusk.

Tagged: Chris Paddie, George Lavender, House redistricting, Joe Straus, wayne christian

You have to feel sorry for the Legislative Budget Board. The LBB came out with a required report titled “Dynamic Economic Impact Statement” on the effect of the House budget, and you have never heard such squealing in the pink building. Among those seeking to apply the Maybelline were David Dewhurst and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. But it will take more than a whole tube of “red revolution” or “warm and cozy” to pretty up this swine.

You see, the LBB made a big mistake: It told the truth. It didn’t say, as the governor likes to boast, “We have gotten through hard times before,” or, “We are confident that the state will be able to meet its obligations.” Instead, it delivered the bad news.

How bad is bad? All of the numbers in parenthesis are negative.

Total employment [Jobs lost]
2012 (271,746.1)
2013 (335,244.1) (more…)

Tagged: david dewhurst, Joe Straus, Legislative Budget Board, rick perry, texas public policy foundation, tom craddick

I was sitting in the Senate gallery yesterday, listening to the debate over the sonogram bill, when Dan Patrick said something that got my attention. He said that he had asked Speaker Straus to recommend someone to carry the sonogram bill, and Straus had recommended Geanie Morrison. He repeated this during the course of the debate, two, maybe three times.

This didn’t ring true to me. At the Republican state convention, Morrison had worked with former RPT vice-president David Barton to undermine Straus. During the speaker’s race, Morrison had been aligned with the Paxton forces. Why would Straus suggest an adversary  to carry the bill–especially after Sid Miller, a Straus ally, had stepped forward to put his name on a new sonogram bill with a low (that is, priority) bill number? For that matter, why would Straus get involved in telling any senator whom to choose as the bill’s House sponsor? That decision belongs to House members. It would have been out of character for Straus, who is a hands-off speaker.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought that Patrick’s comment was strange, because e-mails from members started coming into the speaker’s office. After talking to various sources in the House–not including Straus–here is what I think really happened. Sometime last year Patrick went to Straus and told him he would be carrying THE sonogram bill and Geanie Morrison would be the House sponsor. The most likely scenario is that Patrick didn’t ask Straus to recommend a sponsor; he told him who it was going to be. I can’t explain why Patrick repeated the story about Straus suggesting Geanie Morrison as a sponsor during the debate, unless he did it to put pressure on Straus to let Morrison carry the bill. I don’t think it’s going to work.

Tagged: dan patrick, david barton, geanie morrison, Joe Straus

[I have recovered some material I lost from the original post]

It’s Jim Landtroop.

1. He’s a freshman.

2. He supported Paxton for speaker.

3. He cast one of the fifteen votes against Straus for speaker

4. He represents a part of the state that is hemorrhaging population.

5. He has nowhere to go to pick up extra people.

6. He’s a hard-right conservative

7. He has already been marginalized by his committee assignments (Agriculture & Livestock, Defense & Veterans’ Affairs), although Ag is important in his district.

Landtroop has one of the most oddly shaped districts. It is essentially a cross, seven counties from north to south, five from east to west, with appendages on the east side. He is landlocked by savvy veteran members who play important roles in the House: Chisum on the north; Hardcastle, Darby, and Keffer on the east; Hilderbran on the south; and Craddick and Charles Perry on the west. Perry is a Landtroop clone: tea-party type, hard-right conservative, poor committee assignments, supported Paxton for speaker, voted against Straus. You could flip a coin and let the winner have the seat without affecting the House at all. My bet is that Lubbock will get the seat in the end.

Tagged: charles perry, drew darby, harvey hilderbran, jim keffer, Jim Landtroop, Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, Rick Hardcastle, tom craddick, warren chisum

The Joe Straus who put together these committee assignments was a different Joe Straus from the one who made the appointments in 2009. Straus 2.0 is a much more skilled politician. For those who had labeled him a RINO, he spiked that attack by appointing 27 Republican chairs to only 11 Democrats, a ratio well in excess of the Republican majority of 101 to 49. His enemies had focused on Straus’s appointment of Democrat Rene Oliveira as chairman of Ways & Means as evidence that he was too cozy with Democrats. Straus removed Oliveira as chairman but gave him another chairmanship (Land and Resource Management).

The most important chairmanship held by a Democrat is Business & Industry (Joe Deshotel, who chaired the committee in 09, remains as chairman). I thought Pickett might hold onto Transportation, but Larry Phillips got it instead. I did hear some grumbling that transportation is an urban issue and should be chaired by an urban member. Pickett settled for Defense & Veterans’ Affairs, which will certainly help him back home in El Paso. He retains his seat on Transportation due to seniority.

The smartest move Straus made was to honor Tom Craddick, the longest serving member, as Dean of the House. He also named former Craddick lieutenant Beverly Woolley speaker pro tem. These were clear signals that Straus had put the hostilities of 2007 and 2009 (which culminated in his winning the speakership) behind him and that he was ready to move on.

Another shrewd move was installing Todd Hunter as chairman of Calendars. Some key Straus supporters were said to be jockeying for the position, but Hunter has the right demeanor–calm, relaxed, nonthreatening, and basically nonpartisan–to put members at ease. 

One of the big questions about Straus’s appointments was whether he would forgive and forget the traumas of the speaker’s race. His supporters didn’t want him to, and he didn’t. Poor Bryan Hughes, who said that he had been threatened by Larry Phillips over redistricting and pulled his pledge to Straus, is on Agriculture & Livestock and Human Services. Straus’s rival for the speakership, Ken Paxton, is on County Affairs and Urban Affairs. Phil King is on Elections and Urban Affairs. Leo Berman is on Elections. You might think that is exactly where Berman would want to be, but the real Elections committee is the House Select Committee on Voter Identification and Voter Fraud, chaired by Dennis Bonnen. Sorry, Leo. And sorry to Larry Taylor, too, who is chairman of Elections and won’t get to do anything meaningful. Many Straus loyalists think that Taylor could, and should, have stopped the Republican caucus straw poll for speaker.

Another interesting committee is Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence. The chairman is former Dallas County commisioner Jim Jackson, an odd choice, it seems to me. The committee has handled tort-reform issues in the past, but the 8-3 Republican majority suggests that issues championed by Texans for Lawsuit Reform are ticketed for quick passage or oblivion. Most likely, it’s the former.

A few weeks ago, while chairmanships were very much the subject of speculation, I raised the possibility that Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton might be the choice for chairman of Licensing & Administrative Procedures. My argument at the time was that Hamilton represented a Republican area that might support gaming–Orange and Jefferson counties. If you put a resort casino on Pleasure Island [corrected from "Treasure Island" in an earlier version] in Port Arthur, that would end the exodus to Lake Charles every weekend and keep gambling dollars in Texas. Well, Hamilton got the chairmanship, and the anti-Louisiana strategy still makes sense to me.

The most interesting new chairman is Harvey Hildebran at Ways & Means. He has always wanted to be a player, but he has been relegated to second-string positions. This is his big chance. If the Republicans are ever going to raise revenue, this will be the year. He is also on State Affairs. If Hildrebran is ever going to have a breakout year, this is the time.

What about members who are underutilized? Start with Rafael Anchia. He’s on Land & Resource Management and Pensions, Investments, and Financial Services. The latter is his area of expertise, but still, this is one of the top talents in the House, and he’s relegated to the back benches. Charlie Howard paid the price for supporting Paxton. He’s on Energy Resources, Agriculture & Livestock, and Rules & Resolutions.

Don’t count on seeing a lot of Borris Miles. The inner-city Houston rep is on Agriculture & Livestock. The Democratic party switchers, Ritter and Pena, apparently caught the late train. Ritter remains chairman of Natural Resources. Pena has the chairmanship of Technology.

I don’t see much for Straus’s critics to harp on. He has loaded up on Republican chairs, strengthened the Appropriations committee, and banished his enemies to the dark corners of the Capitol. This guy knows what he is doing.

Tagged: Aaron Pena, Beverly Woolley, Bryan Hughes, Charlie Howard, Dennis Bonnen, Harvey Hildebran, Jim Jackson, Joe Deshotel, joe pickett, Joe Straus, Ken Paxton, larry phillips, Mike Hamilton, rafael anchia, Rene Oliveira, todd hunter, tom craddick

A meeting is scheduled this afternoon at the building occupied by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. It is probably taking place as I write. My information is that representatives of Straus and some of his adversaries, including Michael Quinn Sullivan, are having discussions that could result in the shaping of a Republican agenda by mutual consent. GOP caucus chair Larry Taylor is said to be in the meeting. Straus was not included at last report but may arrive later. Clearly, some Republicans are concerned about what a prolonged speakers race could do to GOP plans for the upcoming session. As they should be.

My view of the meeting is that it really doesn’t matter what the Chisum cabal does at this point. He and his allies have been trying to stir up the far right for weeks and as far as I can tell, the only member they may have won to their cause is Riddle, and that is unconfirmed. The Chisum candidacy has gone nowhere. It’s not going anywhere. If necessary, the Straus team can dredge up oppo research about Chisum’s spending when he was chair of Appropriations in 2007–spending increases and oodles of earmarks for Craddick in Midland. I think that the Berman and Sid Miller exchange of letters ended the speakers race for all practical purposes. Berman was hostile and hysterical about his fellow members, engaging in name-calling (RINO!)and alienating the very people Chisum needs if he is to win, while Miller was calm and statesmanlike (not a word I thought I would ever use about Sid, but good for him). The anti-Straus blitz by the far right has not worked, and the Cabal has had so little success that I would be surprised if their campaign can be sustained until Thanksgiving.

Leaving personalities aside (Chisum, Berman, Straus), I think that everyone whose sanity is intact should root against the Cabal. Chisum engineered a frontal assault on House tradition. They sought to take the power to choose the speaker away from the members and transfer it to ideological groups. They want total one-party control of committees, which is the Washington model they profess to hate. This is not the Texas way, and I believe–and certainly hope–it is destined to fail.

Tagged: Joe Straus, larry taylor, leo berman, michael quinn sullivan, sid miller, texas public policy foundation, warren chisum

The message sent by voters in the Republican primary is that they have little use for establishment politicians. Mabrie Jackson, Delwin Jones, and Mark Griffin all fit that profile. Jones and Griffin were endorsed by establishment types and those endorsements were albatrosses around their necks. Jackson got the same percentage of the vote in the runoff that she got in the general election. She was overwhelmed by a high turnout of angry anti-incumbent voters. The same thing happened to Jones and Griffin. All of the energy right now is being supplied by angry Republican voters who can’t wait to get to the polls and kick out incumbents.

Democrats should be very worried about this political climate. They have won twelve seats over the last three election cycles in Republican-leaning districts. These are frontier outposts in hostile territory that could be overrun by a native uprising. I thought earlier that the Democrats probably were at risk in two or three seats (Maldonado, Thibaut, Homer), and of course they have already lost two seats (no Democrat filed for the Farabee seat in Wichita Falls and Hopson switched parties). But if the climate does not change, every D in a formerly Republican seat is in danger. If anything, the anger is going to be more intense in November — much more — than it was on Tuesday.

Tagged: delwin jones, Joe Straus, mabrie jackson, mark griffin