August, 2005:

Carl Whitmarsh is reporting to his email list that Rep. John Davis, who has gone unchallenged in each election since the 2001 State House redistricting, will not be unopposed next year.

Glad to report the impending announcement of the candidacy of Sherrie Matula for the Democratic nomination for State Representative, District 129, in and around the Clear Lake/NASA area. The district is currently represented by Republican John Davis.

Sherrie and her family are long time resident of the area (since 1974), long time active Democrats and she is a retiring educator who has her degree from UH while her husband and two daughters all have mechanical engineering degrees from Texas A&M. Sherrie is a third generation educator and as a topper, she served an elected four year term on the Clear Creek Independent School District Board of Trustees. She’s been involved in all sorts of community affairs from local sports leagues to the community symphony.

I’ve heard good things about her from BAND‘s John Cobarruvias. Like many State House districts, this one will be a formidable challenge, as the average Republican candidate got about 66% of the vote last year. With one big exception: Tom DeLay only got 60% there. That’s why I’m excited that someone is stepping up – HD129 is entirely contained within CD22, so anything which can help add a point or two to the overall Democratic performance there is huge. I look forward to hearing more about Sherrie Matula.

No Nonsense In November has itself a blog, so you can easily keep up-to-date on what’s going on with this important campaign. Bloglines didn’t automatically pick up their RSS feed for me, so I’m giving it here in case you want it. If these guys can get a good response in Hays County, there’s more hope than I first thought. Check it out.

If you haven’t yet, I commend you to read this post on the Chris Bell blog on what it means to run as a “reform” candidate. Greg and The Jeffersonian have commented on it already, and my reaction is more or less the same as The Jeff’s. In fact, I don’t think I can improve on what he says:

Our vocabulary should begin, and very nearly end, with one word- Reform.

We live in a state that can’t pass school finance reform, but can find a way to kick off 150,000 children off of CHIPs. A state where fifty lobbyists can get into a room and decide how we’re going to fund our schools. Not teachers or parents or legislators – Lobbyists. A state where one man single-handedly gives nearly $3 million to various candidates and then has the gall to have his press secretary tell us he expects nothing in return. A state that can remove any and all caps off of tuition increases, and give tuition-setting power to unelected, unaccountable Boards of Regents whose only main qualification is giving Rick Perry, Inc a whole hell of a lot of money. A state where one US House Majority Leader’s PAC can, for example, accept X numbers of $250 checks from corporations and then three days later send out X numbers of $250 checks to State House candidates; knowing full well that corporate donations to state government candidates are prohibited by state law. And we can go on and on and on.

I’ve said before and I’ll say again that one advantage Bell will have in this race is that Carole Keeton Strayhorn will be sounding some of these themes as well between now and March. She has to because she can’t win by out-Republicaning Rick Perry. She’s cast her die with the new-primary-voters strategy, and that means she has to look different. When she loses, it will be natural for Bell to reach out to the people she managed to bring in, and what he’ll have to say to them – what he’ll have been saying all along – will feel right to them. Good sense doesn’t always make good politics, but here I think it will.

Well, what do you know? Someone in the media has discovered that Kay Bailey Hutchison is not running unopposed next year. See how it’s done in this piece on base closings in Texas.

The state’s losses provided Barbara Ann Radnofsky, expected to be Hutchison’s Democratic opponent next year, with an opportunity to hammer the senator on her record.

“Texas as a whole didn’t benefit from her seniority,” Radnofsky said. “I think this is going to be one of the major issues in this race.”

Radnofsky, a Houston attorney and partner with the law firm of Vinson & Elkins, is making her first bid for office.

She noted that Hutchison, who was elected in 1993, was in office when the last BRAC round, 10 years ago, pummeled San Antonio and surrounding communities with the closure of Kelly Air Force Base.

“I believe it was on her watch that many thousands of jobs were lost at Kelly” in 1995, she said.

Very nice, and high time Senator Hutchison got her free pass revoked. Now let’s see someone press her about the Waco VA Hospital report. She’s a grownup, she can handle a few questions.

For more news on Radnofsky, here’s the report of her recent visit to Kerrville.

I had the opportunity over the weekend to sit down and have a conversation with Nick Lampson at his campaign office in Clear Lake. I didn’t do this in formal interview fashion, we just shot the breeze for an hour or so.

When I asked if there had been any negative reaction to his moving into the district to run in the race, Lampson said no, quite the contrary. His roots run deep in Fort Bend County, and people there have responded to the story of his background in Stafford, which is where he’s now living and where his 90-year-old aunt lives. His history in the area goes back farther than DeLay’s – “There are things about the history of Fort Bend County that I know that he couldn’t possibly know.”

Much of the Harris and Galveston County parts of the district are already familiar with him. Lampson represented the Clear Lake area before and was the ranking member on the subcommittee that oversees NASA (the exact name of which escapes me). Patty Gray, a former State Rep from Galveston, once said of him “I see Lampson more often than I see my City Council member”.

What he’s been doing so far since becoming the de facto nominee is concentrating on fundraising and meeting people. The first part we know about – as has been widely reported, he’d raised about $500K by the end of the second quarter this year. This is a dead time of year for raising campaign cash, but Lampson tells me he continues to meet and exceed every goal they’ve set.

He’s also had a busy schedule of attending neighborhood meetings and introducing or re-introducing himself to the district. This was something he thought he could improve on from 2004, when much of his constituency changed via redistricting. His responsibilities as a sitting member of Congress at that time meant that he couldn’t spend as much time in the area as he wanted to, which was an advantage for his opponent. He notes that this advantage is his now, and he’s using it.

You can’t talk about Tom DeLay without talking about scandals. Lampson has told me before that he doesn’t intend to spend a whole lot of time emphasizing that on the campaign trail, and he reiterated that in this conversation. You can’t avoid the subject – people bring it up to him all the time – but he is focusing on the needs of the district and his past record of service. The Chronicle did a survey on constituent services for the area Congressional offices a few years back, and his came in first. “I have been, and I will be, an effective member of Congress,” is how he puts it.

We talked about DeLay’s recent “suggestion” that Houston police round up suspected illegal aliens and hold them in tents for the National Guard. Lampson pointed out that DeLay has voted against increased funding for Border Patrol agents and equipment, and now he’s trying to pass the buck to cities to make up for that failure. (Along the same lines, DeLay voted against adequate funding for the Coast Guard after 9/11, which led to coastal counties having to pick up the slack.) Lampson opposes revoking the citizenship of US-born children of illegal immigrants, and he opposes the bill to allow arming the self-appointed Minutemen, which he said would put lives (their own and others’) at risk. Lampson called for the federal government to do its job by properly funding its responsibilities.

Lampson says he would have opposed the CAFTA bill because it was not fair to American workers’ interests. “We need a fair playing field, with comparable conditions – environmental and labor – for all sides,” he said. He spoke at length about shrimp fishing in the Gulf versus imported farmed shrimp from Asia as an example. Imported shrimp are supposed to be tested for certain chemicals, but often aren’t because of a familiar problem – inadequate funding for the agency responsible, in this case the FDA. Make the importers play by the same rules that the Americans are subjected to and the Americans will be able to compete.

We talked about other races and candidates, and demographics in various areas of CD22, but I’ve gone on long enough. His campaign website is about to undergo a relaunch with a new design – I had a preview, and it looks pretty slick – so stay tuned for more on that. In the meantime, andybody who wants to help can contact his campaign at [email protected] Volunteers are always needed, whether you live in the district or just know someone who does.

As previously rumored, State Rep. Bob Griggs is retiring at the end of his current term.

Griggs’ decision was not a surprise. His open displeasure over the lack of influence he wielded in Austin on school finance sparked speculation about his plans.

In a written statement, Griggs said he never intended to serve more than two terms in the District 91 House seat and wanted to spend more time with his family. He did not mention his disagreements with fellow Republicans over school finance.

[…]

Three Republicans — Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills, a member of the Birdville school board; Pat Carlson of Grapevine, chairwoman of the Tarrant County Republican Party; and Charles Scoma, the former mayor of North Richland Hills — said Friday that they plan to seek the GOP nomination.

The district includes North Richland Hills, Haltom City, Richland Hills, Watauga and a northern section of Fort Worth.

Griggs was elected in 2002, after nine years as superintendent of the 22,000-student Birdville school district. He expected to play a major role in the Legislature’s school finance overhaul.

Instead, he openly broke with Republicans who wanted to link school funds to state mandates and repeatedly criticized Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, chairman of the House Public Education Committee. Legislative leaders did not reappoint Griggs to the education panel in the last session, further distancing him.

“We were disappointed that we had a person with the experience of Bob Griggs, and the leadership was making a decision that we have an all-American and we’re putting him on the bench,” said Jay Thompson, associate superintendent for staff and student services with the Birdville school district.

[…]

North Richland Hills Mayor Oscar Trevino said he and the mayors of several other cities in District 91 tried recently to persuade Griggs to remain in the Legislature.

Even though Griggs was at odds with legislative leaders, he did a good job of voicing the district’s concerns about education and other issues, Trevino said.

[…]

Jillianne Johnson, executive director of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, said two Democrats who live in the district have also expressed interest in running but declined to give their names. The primary election is March 7.

Aaron Pena has the full text of Griggs’ statement. Greg has an existential question about Griggs’ departure:

Griggs’ exit ups the ante on Craddick’s future as the dominant question of said future becomes: do truculant GOP members lose out in 2006 or have a change of heart and go back to supporting Craddick for Speaker in January 2007 … or does the current dissatisfaction with Craddick hold – and more importantly, will the Craddick Dems that survive 2006 come back home and support a moderate GOP Speaker if enough GOP support is out there?

Greg turns this into a question for Houston’s Al Edwards, and suggests that speakership preferences ought to be a primary issue for Edwards’ announced opponent, Borris Miles. I think that’s right.

One last thing Greg notes is the 2002 partisan makeup of HD91 – it’s pretty heavily Republican. I did a quick check on the 2004 results and it’s no different – the high scorer for Democrats was JR Molina with 34.1%. Beyond the usual Run Everywhere cheering, the best reason I can think of to urge a Democrat to run there is to remind all the voters that Bob Griggs (who was the top votegetter in HD91 last year) wasn’t satisfied with the Republican “solutions” for education. Especially if the GOP nominee is a likely rubber stamp such as Pat Carlson, the contrast might make some people think twice.

And as long as we’ve brought up the speakership, The Jeffersonian asks a good question: Is there any effort to recruit a Democratic opponent for Tom Craddick in his district? I think that would be a good little project for the caucus leadership – Dunnam, Gallego, and Coleman. What say you guys?

City Council member Mark Ellis, who is term-limited as of this year, has announced his intention to run for the open SD7 seat.

“I’m extremely irritated at what’s going on in Austin. There are two issues that are important, school reform and property tax relief. We (Republicans) have a majority, and we still can’t get things done,” Ellis said. “Two distinguishing factors of my candidacy are my success at City Hall and the fact that I have not been a part of the last regular session.”

Yes, but will he run on a platform of pushing the serially-failed Perry/Craddick plans harder, or on a platform of considering better alternatives? And will Harris County GOP Chair Jared Woodfill make good on his earlier threats by taking sides in the primary? Stay tuned.

You know that any article that features a photo of Tom DeLay standing next to an Elvis impersonator is going to be good reading, right? And so it is.

I’ve opined before that DeLay’s actions so far indicate to me a desire on his part to not just win but win big. I’m gratified to see that I’m not the only person who thinks that.

“He needs to play it safe and come home and do the things you need to do,” said Gloria Roemer, spokeswoman for Harris County Judge Robert Eckels. “He wants to win by a substantial margin.”

Unlike me, Robert Eckels is in a pretty good position to know what Tom DeLay is thinking, so if he’s saying this sort of thing, you can accept it as true. Just remember that you read it here first.

I find this quote, from Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, to be even more interesting:

“He may have observed the experiences of others who took their districts for granted and lived to rue the day,” said Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman. “It’s always smart to dance with the girl that brung ya.”

[…]

DeLay’s Democratic opponent is former Rep. Nick Lampson, who lost his seat after the redistricting. Lampson had raised more than $500,000 by June 30; in 2004, Morrison raised only about $643,000 for the entire campaign.

DeLay and Lampson each plan to raise at least $4 million.

“Tom Delay is anything but naive,” Kaufman said. “It is not going to be a tortoise-and-hare situation for him.”

Is Kaufman implying that DeLay was caught napping last year? We know that he didn’t really do much campaigning until fairly late in the cycle. He’s certainly being serious about his own fundraising, what with bringing in Big Time Dick for a little secure-undisclosed-location schmoozing. Make of this what you will.

One last item of interest:

[T]he parade of local appearances is a departure from past August breaks. In 2002, for instance, DeLay campaigned for eight House members from California to North Carolina. In 2003, he and other lawmakers addressed Israel’s Knesset.

On this break, he spent just two days away from the district — one in Nashville, Tenn., to attend a Christian conservative rally and another at a Hilton Head golf fundraiser for Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.

There’s another reason, beyond DeLay’s need to tend to his own backyard, why he isn’t travelling around raising money for other people so much: Coverage like this tends to follow along with him.

I’ll be returning to some of these ideas later on over the weekend. For now, just enjoy that Elvis picture.

As Greg has noted, State Rep. Joe Nixon is now officially a candidate for the open SD7 seat, joining fellow Republican Rep. Peggy Hamric in the race. I’ve got a press release from the announcement which touts Nixon’s “11-year record” of “fighting for tax relief, defending traditional family values, and passing historic tort reform” – you get the idea. Suffice it to say that I wish the Democrats had run a candidate against him last year.

Greg also notes that CD10 GOP primary losers Ben Streusand and John Devine are mulling this race over. Be sure the Mute button on your TV remote is in good working order if they do.

In HD48, Donna Howard is officially in the Democratic primary to challenge incumbent GOP Rep. Todd Baxter, who won a squeaker against Kelly White last year. Karl-T reported a few days ago that White would be backing Howard, who will be up against Andy Brown and possibly others in the Dem primary. I have a press release on this one as well, and I’ll quote a bit from it:

A former Eanes ISD board member, Howard was born and raised in Austin, graduated from Reagan High, and has spent her adult life working to help strengthen the community. She was a co-founder of Advocates for Eanes Schools, a parent organization that monitors the activities of the school board, and helped start the Texas Education Crisis Coalition, a grassroots group of parents and community leaders.

Certified as a Master School Trustee by the Texas Association of School Boards, Howard has previously run as a Democratic candidate for the State Board of Education.

[…]

Howard earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s in health education, both from the University of Texas. She has worked as a critical care nurse at Brackenridge and Seton hospitals, served as the first hospital-based Patient Education Coordinator in Austin history, and helped get the Seton Good Health School off the ground. She has also been president of the Texas Nurses’ Association (District 5) and a Health Education instructor at UT.

Two good candidates there, hopefully whoever emerges in March can take out Baxter.

And speaking of close Travis County State House races, HD50’s Mark Strama now has an opponent, Republican Don Zimmerman. Obviously, I’m a Strama fan, and I believe he’ll win this race by a much more comfortable margin than he did in 2004 against then-incumbent (and TAB poster boy) Jack Stick, but I’ll give Zimmerman credit for his role in defeating a bad anti-privacy bill from 2003 (thanks to Rob for the pointer).

For what it’s worth, Zimmerman’s announcement just about stands alone among Republican challenges to incumbent Democrats – other than this, State Sen. Frank Madla, and of course US Rep. Chet Edwards, I can’t think of any others with opponents at this point. I’m sure that’ll change, but for now at least the Dems are way ahead in the recruitment game.

Desis for Texas, a political organization of South Asian citizens, has given a very enthusiastic endorsement to Chris Bell for Governor. It’s now mirrored on the Bell blog. Check it out.

PerryVsWorld recently got a bunch of Kinky Friedman-flavored comment spam. I’m sure it’s just a fluke, but the thought has occurred to me that this sort of thing could be a tempting dirty trick for some upcoming Karl Rove wannabe. Spam a bunch of blogs with an opponent’s campaign URL so that the blog owners ban the URL and bitch about it to their audiences, thus not only generating a lot of badwill for your enemy among some opinion leaders, but maybe even getting some regular press coverage out of it just for the sheer novelty factor. It shouldn’t be too hard to cover your tracks – I’m pretty sure the originating IP address for comments can be spoofed. And so what if you eventually get caught? Who reads Correction notices in the papers anyway?

The more I think about this, the more I think it’ll happen sooner or later. Then we’ll know that blogs really have arrived as a campaign tool.

(Just so we’re 100% clear, I’m not claiming in any way, shape, or form that what happened to the PvsW blog was anything like this. I just got to thinking as I read his post and this is what I came up with. It’s no fun if you can’t speculate, right? This is pure unadulterated speculation about something that may happen in the future, not something that has already happened here and now. So please, don’t say that I’m making any accusations. I’m not.)

UPDATE: BOR has a different Kinky problem.