Sen. Wendy Davis
Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis on Tuesday recalled the deadly explosion just up the road in West as she lambasted her GOP opponent for governor, Attorney General Greg Abbott, over his decision restricting disclosure of information about chemical facilities’ hazardous caches.
“Texans deserve to know where these chemicals are located,” Davis told supporters at the Waco building that houses the Democratic Party, her campaign and Battleground Texas, a group working to make the state competitive for Democrats.
“A candidate for governor should have more concern for the people of the state that she wants to run than to let them sleep next door to explosives and not only not say a word about it, but actively seek to hide that information from them,” said Davis, who has seized on the issue as part of her effort to paint Abbott as an insider who is not working for everyday Texans.
She launched a “Texans Deserve to Know” tour across Texas Tuesday to pound on the issue, starting in Fort Worth and traveling to Waco. The tour also will include San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Austin and El Paso. Davis has said if elected, she will make disclosure of the information a priority.
There’s a lame explanation from one of Abbott’s spokespeople claiming that he’s just interpreting a law from 2003, which even if one is inclined to believe that still leaves one wondering why this information continued to be routinely disclosed in the 11 years since. What there still isn’t, as I noted yesterday, is anything resembling a counterattack from Abbott on this. It’s duck and cover all the way. That right there says more than anything Davis could say. Trail Blazers, which embeds a long video segment that Rachel Maddow did on this, has more.
UPDATE: I take it back. Abbott is now responding, and he’s playing the terrorist card. Perhaps someone should ask him 1) why didn’t he take this threat seriously before now, and 2) if homeowners can find out about dangerous chemicals by “just driving around” and asking, can’t the terrorists do that, too?