From Pat Carlson: “We at Texas Eagle Forum believe the vote for speaker of the Texas House is so important we will be weighing this one vote as 50% of the total score.” * * * * This is stupid. It just shows how crazy the far right is. The speaker’s race does not determine half the session. So, according to the Eagle Forum, members can vote for budget cuts, an increase in border security spending, a Voter I.D. bill, all the conservative bills that are going to pass, and they are going to be downgraded in the ratings because they voted for Joe Straus, who is going to preside over the passage of all or most of thse bills anyway. No doubt the idea is to get people dumb enough to think that the Eagle Forum ratings really matter to consider running against Straus voters in the primary. Carlson has let the cat out of the bag. What she and the rest of the far right care about is not passing conservative legislation. It’s getting a vote record that can be used to purge suspected RINOs in the primary. It’s going to look very strange when Republican lawmakers come out of the best session ever for Republicans with voting records below 50%. Lon Burnam could be speaker and the Republicans would still pass all their legislation.