TiVo alert! Sen. Leticia van de Putte will be among the roundtable guests on Real Time with Bill Maher, tonight at 11 PM EDT on HBO. Alasi, I’m HBO-free until the Sopranos come back on the air, so if you manage to watch it, please tell me how she does.
I’ve received a couple of emails about this picture, currently seen in the Austin Chronicle, as well as here. I forgot to blog about it when I first saw it (sorry, Greg!), but better late than never. The AusChron also has some good stuff I’ve not seen elsewhere, about quorumless business in the House being done on Monday, and other shenanigans.
Rep. Charlie Stenholm lashes out at Tom DeLay, calling him “one power hungry politician” who is responsible for all of this. Via Save Texas Reps.
There’s a rally to support the Texas 11 tomorrow morning at 11:30 AM in Austin (via Byron).
According to the Quorum Report, there’s an “unsubstantiated rumor” that if a redistricting map does manage to pass this year, several presumably about to be unemployed Congressmen (the title of the piece names Stenholm, Chet Edwards, and Jim Turner) might consider running for the state Senate in 2004. I must say, that would make a lot of sense.
Also in the Quorum Report, Sen. Mario Gallegos has responded to Sen. Troy Fraser’s wish to see the 2/3 rule permanently eliminated by pointing out that if it had been, a hate crime bill would have passed much sooner than it eventually did, and redistricting would have gotten accomplished in 2001, presumably with the then-Democratic House map. In other words, be careful what you wish for.
Speaking of Sen. Gallegos, I just got a recorded call from him asking me to call Gov. Perry’s office at 1-800-252-9600 to tell him to put an end to the redistricting fight. Feel free to join me.
I’m so ready for the weekend…
Heh. Only in Austin could they rally to support politicians, and the pols being supported dare not show their faces.
I thought about the idea of Congressmen running for State Senate a little while ago. It’s what Jim Barcia did in Michigan last year after his seat was eliminated. I would have liked to have seen Chet Edwards be vocal about chalenging Kip Averitt if he voted for redistricting in committee and the eventual map would have eliminated his district. The same goes for the other Dems. I think that it would have been helpful for them to vocally chalenge their Republican State senators at the begining of the process. Still, I’m glad that they’re doing it now.