The HISD bond opposition organizes

Most of this story is about fears that opposition to the HISD bond proposal will lead people to also vote against State Proposition 2, which is a subject I covered last week. Other than a quote from Dr. Richard Murray suggesting that Prop 2 supporters probably don't have to worry, there's not much new to add to that. Let me point you again to the FAQ on Prop 2 (PDF), and say again that this is worth voting for.

Of more immediate interest to me is the bit at the end about the apparent morphing of the HISD opposition from "We're not against it, we're just not for it" to a full-fledged "We're against it":

State Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat who is opposed to HISD's bond proposal, said he can understand why higher education officials are concerned.

"We've tried to make clear to people that our opposition is only to the HISD bonds," Dutton said. "We initially asked HISD, because of that and other reasons, if they would just take their bond issue off (the Nov. 6 ballot) and come back at a later date. But they were not interested."

In the past couple of weeks, support seemed to be growing for the school district's bond package with endorsements coming from several groups, including the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Greater Houston Partnership.

But on Friday, Dutton and other opponents of the bond upped their organizing efforts. More than 150 mostly black community members, church leaders and local politicians turned out for a strategizing meeting for Concerned Citizens for School Equality, a recently formed political action committee opposing the bond.

"This is about defeating the HISD bond proposal," state Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, told the attendees. "The analyzing has been done. This is now about saying, 'We don't want it and we need to work on bringing it down.' "

Game on, then. I hear that the Hotze anti-tax crowd is thinking about dropping a quarter million bucks on an anti-HISD bond campaign. Maybe these two groups together can overcome Latino power and send the bond to defeat. I personally would be a wee bit concerned if I ever found myself as the main ally to those folks on any issue, but strange bedfellows and all that. We'll see what happens.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 06, 2007 to Election 2007