It was lively, and it was a good reminder of who Dan Patrick really is.
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte
In the only scheduled debate in their race for lieutenant governor, state Sens. Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte faced off on Monday night in a lively exchange that displayed their divergent positions on everything from health care and immigration to school finance and taxes.
Both candidates played offense: Patrick, Republican of Houston, attempted to portray Van de Putte, Democrat of San Antonio, as “out of step” with Texas voters. Van de Putte used the back-and-forth to try to pin Patrick down on votes he’d taken on cuts to public education. But one of the biggest points of contention in the hourlong showdown in Austin was over the state’s tax structure.
Patrick recently called for reducing the state’s dependence on the property tax to fund public schools and relying on the state’s sales tax instead. On Monday, Van de Putte used Patrick’s position to argue that he would raise the sales tax, which she said would negatively affect businesses and consumers. Patrick sought to clarify his proposal, saying he would only support increasing the sales tax “by a penny or two” to compensate for reduced revenue from property taxes.
“There are two candidates on this stage, and I’m the only one that doesn’t want to raise your sales taxes,” Van de Putte said. “To burden Texas businesses and families with a sales tax increase … well, that’s not being pro-business.”
There’s video of the debate here if you missed it or want to share it with someone else that didn’t see it but needs to. The Observer liveblogged it. Writer Forrest Wilder expressed amazement at Patrick’s admission that he’d raise the sales tax to finance a property tax cut, but he’s been saying this all along. I’ve been saying all along that someone needs to point out just how much Dan Patrick himself would benefit from the kind of tax swap he’s proposing. It’s not like we haven’t seen this before, after all.
Burka summed it up as follows:
The most interesting thing about the debate was Patrick’s persona. He felt no need to soften his message or appeal to more mainstream voters. This is exactly who he is, and who he wants to be: a true conservative radical.
Good to know his phony claims of being compassionate didn’t last long. I still don’t know why anyone would have believed him in the first place. The Chron story is here, and PDiddie, EoW, Juanita, Newsdesk, the TSTA Blog, and the Current has more.