August 28, 2003
Will Kay Bailey come home?

The Quorum Report points to a pretty fascinating editorial on Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and redistricting in the Park City Peoples Newspaper. This looks to me like a little suburban Dallas rag, and I daresay they're more R than D (please correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, I've reproduced it below since it looks like their links aren't permanent. Check it out.

Won’t you come home, Kay Bailey?

If Rick Perry calls another session, Republicans should elect another governor

The line is 10-1 that Rick Perry will call another special session to jam through Congressional redistricting. As we’ve said before and will say again, the Republicans have every right to redistrict. The voters gave them the power, and the voters expect them to use that power. But we doubt the voters expected they would use their power so ineptly. While the governor pursues his one-track strategy, a buzzing host of financial troubles hovers overhead. When those troubles descend on Texas, there will be hell to pay. The governor’s political clumsiness has created a legislative crisis that leaves Texas unprepared and unarmed to fend for itself.

There’s more. Seasoned political observers talk about the new GOP leadership with a growing cynicism that long-time Republicans should find appalling. From the stories that are circulating, the new Republican leaders don’t sound much different that the old Democrats who controlled the state for over 100 years.

Corruption is hard to track and harder to prove. A major donor buys a private jet for $500,000 and then sells it to an aspiring candidate for $100,000, which he borrows personally so he can campaign across state. When the election is over, the now-elected official turns around and sells the plane on the open market for $400,000. In these transactions, nothing illegal has occurred. Yet the official has pocketed $300,000 before taxes.

But most things are subtler than that. The intertwining of business interests with state regulation provides a fertile field for mischief. Take the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as an example. One of its three members is a lobbyist for the Texas Chemical Council. Another of its three members, appointed by Rick Perry, is a long-time activist for the Texas Cattleraisers Association, whose lobbyist also happens to represent various utility and chemical interests before the Commission on which she serves. Nothing wrong with that. But how do you think this Commission votes when chemical industry interests are at stake? It makes a joke of the Commission’s name.

Anything illegal here? Not at all. It’s all business as usual in Austin — and that’s the other problem with this governor, besides his ineptitude. He’s a Republican who could as easily be a Democrat. There’s not, in the famous phrase, a dime’s worth of difference between how state government is operated now under the GOP than how it operated under the Tory Democrats who ran the state for over 100 years.

That’s why many Republicans’ eyes are turning to Washington, where Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has served Texas with honor and distinction. We don’t agree with her on every issue (it’s time to dump the Wright Amendment, Senator), but we are second to none in our respect for her abilities and her probity.

Senator Hutchison is a Republican to her fingertips. She grew up in an insurgent Texas Republican Party whose goal was reform, not business as usual. Her integrity is unquestioned. Her good sense is well known. Her political instincts are excellent.

If Kay Bailey were to challenge Rick Perry in the March primary, Texas Republicans would face a clear choice. There’s no question the battle would be bloody. Perry is the kind of politician who, because he believes in nothing, will stop at nothing to get elected. The primary is dominated by the kind of hard-nut conservative that gives that admirable word an almost pejorative meaning. And, finally, Republicans are notoriously loath to fight it out in public.

Against that, Kay Bailey has advantages. She is the most popular Republican in the state, next to the president himself. She is a prodigious fund raiser. She has a deeply embedded network of support throughout the state.

If Rick Perry goes through with his threat to call another session, costing the taxpayers another $30 million, he may achieve his obsession of getting Tom DeLay three more seats in the U.S. Congress. But if he thinks that’s why Texans elected him, he’s reading tea leaves, not election results. The Republicans received a mandate, but not for this. The GOP needs to replenish and reclaim that mandate. It will achieve that by addressing and fixing the state’s problems, not by adding to them.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson, come home.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on August 28, 2003 to Killer D's | TrackBack
Comments

Oh, yeah, it's the throwaway rag for the rich and shallow, and distributed only in Highland Park, University Park, and the "rich" parts of North Dallas.

Posted by: precinct1233 on August 28, 2003 8:17 PM

Well said.

My wife (the school teacher) and I have been sitting around counting up the ways Perry, et al have shafted us: $500 lost this year and another $500 next year, 25% increases in copays. Just for being a teacher.

I won't mention all the other ways such as vehicle registration that affect all of us.

I will call her office tomorrow to ask that she run.

Posted by: Charles M on August 28, 2003 9:22 PM

I love k b h dearly, but I pray she stays in washington! it is my sincere belief that she can do much much more good for the whole of texas as a senator!
she has been there long enough to be on important commities with a lot of power & influence for the good of the whole state!
like I say, I LOVE her dearly, & will pray that she decides to remain as our senior senator from the great & wonderful state of texas!

Posted by: george reynolds on February 19, 2004 12:42 AM

Kay Bailey may be a good Republican, but that still means she has nothing in common with working Texans. She served as a Senate Whore for the credit card industry and helped shove through one of the meanest, class-warfare oriented laws ever, the so-called "Bankruptcy Abuse Protection Act." The problem is, Rick Perry is even worse. I'm taking a serious look at Kinky Friedman!

Posted by: Terry Smith on March 13, 2005 10:06 PM

KBH, give me a break!! She's basically sold out the entire North Texas economy (keeping the Wright Amendment scam going) just so her husband can keep on collecting all those fat juicy fees from the DFW Airport Board.

If we're looking for integrity, we're not going to find it in Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Posted by: El Tigre on November 6, 2005 5:58 PM