Good news, if it goes anywhere. The Texas Senate approved a bill to regulate short-term lenders on Monday night, a milestone some thought the chamber wouldn’t reach after a personal and divisive floor fight on Thursday. But with the measure’s author, state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, calling the highly-altered bill an “ugly baby,” it remains [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Wendy Davis’
Senate to tap that Rainy Day Fund
It is just sitting there, not doing any good if it’s unused. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, laid out an ambitious plan to spend $6 billion from the state’s Rainy Day Fund on Thursday morning while also setting the stage for a serious debate in the remaining weeks of the session on [...]
Patrick has his voucher hearing
It went about as you’d expect. State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, delivered an impassioned plea in support of what threatens to become a beleaguered tax credit scholarship plan during a Tuesday morning hearing on his legislation. “We are great enough in this state to do this thing if we just knock down some barriers of [...]
House debates its budget
As you know, yesterday was Budgetpalooza in the House. The House budget puts more money into public education and less into health and human services than a Senate proposal that passed the upper chamber last month. “No one is or will be entirely happy with this bill, but there is something for everyone this year,” [...]
Davis says she’s not running for Governor next year
So much for that. State Sen. Wendy Davis, who has emerged as one of the most visible Democrats in the Capitol this session, says she has no plans to run for governor in 2014, but will seek another term representing Fort Worth next year. “I’m running for my Senate district in 2014, and hopefully earning [...]
Senate passes its budget
Let the damning with faint praise for this jerry-rigged excuse for not adequately funding our needs yet not eviscerating them as badly as last time begin. The Texas Senate approved a $195.5 billion two-year budget Wednesday, with Democratic state Sens. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth and Sylvia Garcia of Houston voting against the spending plan. [...]
TSTA polls about public education
From the inbox, via the TSTA: A strong majority of Texas voters support using some of the $12 billion in the state’s Rainy Day Fund to restore the $5.4 billion cut from the public education budget two years ago, and the support is strong across party lines, a poll commissioned by the Texas State Teachers [...]
Gubernatorial speculation: Mike Villarreal and Bill White
A few days back, BOR had a post about who was on deck for 2014, and the first two candidates they speculated about for Governor were two I had not talked about here before, State Rep. Mike Villarreal and 2010 candidate and former Houston Mayor Bill White. (They also listed State Sen. Kirk Watson, but [...]
Precinct analysis: Comparing 2012 and 2008, Senate and SBOE edition
To follow up on my previous examination of how the 2012 election returns looked in State House districts compared to the 2008 returns, I now have the data to look at other types of districts as well. You can find it as well on the Texas Legislative Council’s webpage – here are the reports for [...]
PPP polls Texas
I have three things to say about this. Texas voters- even Republicans- have had enough of Rick Perry. PPP’s newest poll finds that only 31% of voters think Perry should seek reelection next year, compared to 62% who think it’s time for him to step aside. He’s among the most unpopular Governors in the country, [...]
How about Ellis 2014?
Michael Hurta makes an observation. The only Democratic legislator in Texas who is not up for reelection in 2014 yet also has seven figures in his campaign bank account is Rodney Ellis. Will we hear any Ellis for Governor rumors before session is done? You can see a copy of Sen. Ellis’ January report here. [...]
Optimism abounds at inauguration time
Inauguration time is always a good time to be optimistic. Texas Democrats haven’t had a lot to cheer about in recent years. As San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro is quick to remind you, the political score in Texas is 29-0. In favor of the Republicans. That means 29 Republicans in statewide offices; zero Democrats. But [...]
When, Wendy?
When will Sen. Wendy Davis run for statewide office? Fortified by a convincing re-election victory, state Sen. Wendy Davis is resuming her role as a fierce critic of Republican-led education cuts as she enters her third regular session of the Legislature. Political watchers say the session could set the stage for Davis to run for [...]
White Ds and non-white Rs
A few points to make about this. White Democrats are an increasingly vanishing species in the Texas Legislature, where there will be only 10 when the new legislative session starts in early January. The face of the Legislature has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past 25 years, and the state’s rapidly changing demographics are [...]
The payday lenders won’t go without a fight
Where there’s a fight, there’s sure to be lots of money. Payday lenders were big spenders in the most recent Texas political campaigns – contributing more than $1.6 million to state races in the 2012 election cycle and giving most generously to Republican committee members who soon will be reviewing proposed reforms for their industry. [...]
Plaintiffs want to proceed with new redistricting maps
Texas Redistricting: Plaintiff groups in the Texas redistricting litigation in San Antonio told the court that it should go ahead and start the process of drawing remedial state house and congressional maps for use in 2014, but disagreed slightly about the timing of the process. Under proposals from two plaintiff groups, the state would have [...]
The Lege will take another crack at payday lending
I’m glad to see this, because the Lege definitely left business unfinished last time. About 83 percent of customers in Beaumont and 75 percent in the Houston and San Antonio metro areas are locked in a loan renewal cycle, latest lender reports show. State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, and state Sen. John [...]
Succeeding Sen. Gallegos
With the posthumous victory by Sen. Mario Gallegos, there is still one unsettled matter for 2012 in Texas. Mario Gallegos, one of the Texas Senate’s most reliable liberals until his death last month, scored a final win Tuesday, easily defeating his Republican challenger after his name remained on the ballot. Beleaguered Texas Democrats also withstood [...]
What I’ll be looking for tonight
Just a reminder that I’ll be on KPFT tonight starting at 7 PM to talk about the elections. Here’s a preview of the things I’ll be looking for: 1. SD10 – Sen. Wendy Davis vs Mark Shelton: Easily the most important race on the ballot in Texas. Davis has been a progressive champion and a [...]
Endorsement watch: Various miscellaneous
Just a brief roundup of various endorsements that have come to my attention lately. No particular theme to them, just what I’ve seen in the past few days. – The Environmental Defense Fund has endorsed the HISD bond referendum. The $1.89 billion proposition will be use to build, replace and renovate schools in adherence to [...]
All the interviews for 2012
As we begin early voting for the November election, here are all the interviews I conducted for candidates who are on the ballot as well as for the referenda. These include interviews that were done for the primary as well as the ones done after the primary. I hope you found them useful. Senate: Paul [...]
More on Sen. Gallegos
For better or worse, we must discuss the politics of Sen. Mario Gallegos’ death this week. The first question to address is what happens next? Rich Parsons, a spokesman for Secretary of State Hope Andrade, this morning clarified the timing of a special election in state Senate District 6 if the late Mario Gallegos Jr. [...]
Federal court denies preclearance on all redistricting maps
The long-awaited ruling in the preclearance lawsuit by the DC Court
Dewhurst says he’s running for re-election in 2014
Peggy Fikac was first to report that David Dewhurst is not planning to fade away just yet. The last time we asked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst what he plans to do in 2014, it was soon after he lost the U.S. Senate nomination to Ted Cruz. He asked if reporters minded giving him a couple [...]
Fall interview season begins tomorrow
I know that we just finished the primary runoffs, but we’re also now more than halfway through August, so it’s time to start doing interviews with candidates for the fall. I’ll be up candid, I don’t know exactly how many interviews I plan to do. For the most part, I don’t anticipate re-interviewing candidates that [...]
On hedging one’s bets
Writing in the Trib, Mustafa Tameez tells Republicans that there such a thing as too much of a good thing for them. If Republicans win in SD-10, there will only be 11 Democrats in the Texas Senate. That means that in order for the majority to pass anything it wants, all they need to do [...]
July finance reports, other legislative races of interest
Here’s a roundup of campaign finance reports for other legislative races of interest from around the state. Dist Candidate Raised Spent Cash Loans =============================================================== SD10 W Davis (D,I) 824,871 405,628 1,097,238 0 SD10 Shelton (R) 53,293 35,916 301,146 0 SD25 Wentworth (R,I) 316,888 299,629 256,123 0 SD25 Campbell (R) 65,791 12,398 115,551 107,597 SD25 Courage [...]
Waiting for Rick (and Greg, and David)
Ross Ramsey breaks out his crystal ball and looks ahead to the 2014 election. Remember this: In his long history in state politics — closing in on three decades — [Rick] Perry has run for everything he said he was going to run for. Given his history, the safest assumption is that Perry will be [...]
Interview with State Sen. Wendy Davis
I didn’t have the room in my schedule during the TDP convention to contemplate trying to arrange a bunch of interviews, but if there was one person I hadn’t spoken to this cycle that I really wanted to it was State Sen. Wendy Davis. Elected in 2008 in a red-leaning district, Sen. Davis quickly established [...]
Sen. Wendy Davis’ office firebombed
Oh, my God. State Sen. Wendy Davis’ West Seventh Street office in Fort Worth was firebombed Tuesday afternoon, according to reports, but no one was injured in the attack. According to scanner traffic, Fort Worth patrol officers were searching for an arsonist suspected of tossing as many as two Molotov cocktails into the third-floor office. [...]
State agrees to leave SD10 unchanged
This is big. Negotiators in San Antonio — trying to find common ground on state legislative and congressional districts so a primary date in Texas that can stick may finally be set — agreed to leave unchanged state Senate District 10, now represented by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth. This district has been the [...]
The numbers in the “deal”
As I start to type this I have no idea if the “deal” that was announced earlier today will be in effect or on the trash heap. I think it’s instructive to look at the numbers in the proposed maps anyway, since they give a good idea of how much the state was willing to [...]