Cheerleader vs. Cheerleader

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has been on the campaign trail for a while now trading barbs with current governor Rick Perry. But yesterday, she made it official. From her old high school in LaMarque (40 miles SE of Houston), Hutchison announced that she is an official candidate for the office of governor in the 2010 Texas Republican primary.

That means the Republican primary will be between former University of Texas cheerleader Hutchison and former Texas A and M cheerleader Perry. And it's shaping up to be a very expensive and nasty primary campaign. Experts believe that Hutchison and Perry will break all previous records on campaign expenditure by a large margin.

Both candidates have been making accusations aimed at the other, and we are still at least seven months from the primary voting. Some Republicans are even afraid the primary fight will get nasty enough to split the Texas Republican Party. It would not take many of the loser's supporters staying home to throw the general election to the Democrats.

As for the Democrats, so far there is only one announced candidate -- Tom Schieffer, who served as an ambassador to both Australia and Japan during the Bush administration. Humorist, singer and author Kinky Friedman is currently raising funds, and will probably announce his candidacy soon.

Some Democrats are also urging former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to enter the race. There are two drawbacks to an Earle candidacy -- he may not have enough name recognition to defeat Schieffer or Friedman, and he is the DA who filed charges against Tom Delay, causing his fall from power. An Earle candidacy could bring the two warring factions of the Republican Party back together again.

Some media members have tried to paint the Republican primary as a right-winger (Perry) against a moderate (Hutchison). That simply is not true. Both are hardcore right-wingers. All you have to do to know this is to look at a couple of Hutchison's most high-profile supporters -- Dick Armey and Phil Gramm. You can't get any further to the right in Texas than these two nuts.

Kay Chooses NRA Over Hispanics

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has evidently decided she doesn't need any Hispanic votes in her race for the governorship of Texas next year. She has officially announced that she will not vote for Sonia Sotomayor to be a justice on the United States Supreme Court.

On Friday, she tried to explain away that vote before a Hispanic group. She gave a talk to the Texas Association of Mexican-American Chambers of Commerce. This group of businessmen (and women) is about the most conservative Hispanic group she's going to be able to find. If she can't get this group on her side, she's going to have a lot of trouble trying to win over other Hispanics.

And frankly, the group wasn't that impressed with her reason for voting against Sotomayor. She told the group that she was going to vote "no" because that's what the National Rifle Association (NRA) wanted her to do. The NRA is afraid that Sotomayor might be anti-gun, so they are lobbying against her on Capitol Hill.

So much for Hutchison being a moderate. Given a choice between supporting the Hispanic community or the gun lobby, she didn't hesitate to choose the NRA. In addition to this probably getting some NRA funds for her campaign, I guess it helps her play to the right-wing racist base of the Texas Republican Party.

But if she gets past Perry in the Republican primary, she may find that the "no" vote on Sotomayor will hurt her in the general election. With each passing year, the proportion of Hispanics grows in Texas. And with each election, it becomes more dangerous to write them off as unnecessary.

A majority of the Texas Republican Party may be right-wing racists, but you need a lot more than that to win a general election. The farther to the right that Hutchison goes to beat Perry in the primary election, the closer she's going to make the Fall's general election

The 2010 election could turn out to be a good one for Texas Democrats.

Who Replaces Hutchison ?

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has made it very clear that she going to run for governor in 2010. When she does, it will open up a chance for someone else to win her senate seat. It's not yet known whether she will resign the seat before or after the Republican primary next year, but if Public Policy Polling (PPP) is right then it doesn't matter -- the seat will be available.

Public Policy Polling released a poll last Tuesday that shows Hutchison with a 25% lead over her opponent in the Republican primary -- Rick Perry. That's a huge lead to have over a sitting governor, especially one that got only 39% of the vote in his last general election. It looks like the likely Republican voters are tired of "Governor Goodhair".

So, who will fill the vacancy left by Hutchison in the United States Senate? PPP also tried to answer that question, but the results were not nearly as decisive as the figures in the governor's race.

There are three main Republican contenders for the post (Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Attorney General Greg Abbott, State Senator Florence Shapiro), and two Democratic contenders (former Comptroller John Sharp, Houston Mayor Bill White). PPP poled to see if there was a clear leader among these five candidates, and found there wasn't.

Dewhurst leads Sharp 42%-36% and White 42%-37%. Abbott leads Sharp 44%-36% and White 42%-36%. Shapiro barely trailed Sharp and beats White by 1 point. Dewhurst and Abbott look pretty even, but neither gets near 50%. That bodes well for the Democrats, and means it could be a very close election.

The only real loser here is Florence Shapiro, who is the fartherest to the right of any of the candidates. I think even the Republicans know she is also the weakest candidate, and would give Democrats the best chance of snatching the seat away from them.

This coming senate race could be a lot of fun for both parties.

Hutchison Fails To Gut Ledbetter Bill

Last year, the Supreme Court made a ridiculous decision that effectively gave corporations the right to continue to discriminate against women and minorities in the area of equal pay for equal work. The case was Ledbetter vs. Goodyear. Lily Ledbetter had worked for Goodyear for 15 years before she learned that she was paid over $6,000 a year less than her male counterparts doing the same job.

Ledbetter took the company to court citing a 1964 law outlawing discrimination in wage compensation. She won the case and the jury awarded her damages. But the Supreme Court threw out her judgement. The court said she only had 180 days from the time the discrimination started in which to file a lawsuit. In other words, the court said she had to file suit 15 years before she knew of the pay discrimination.

This was obviously an unjust decision, and certainly not the intent of those that passed the law in 1964. Congress is now in the process of trying to pass a new law that would fix this unfair situation. It is called the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and it is currently being considered by the Senate. The bill would start the clock on filing from the time of the most recent discrimination (the latest discriminitory paycheck).

Naturally, it is a Texan that is carrying the water for the corporations in trying to gut the new bill, and sadly, a woman -- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Although she claims to be in favor of equal pay for equal work, Hutchison offered an amendment that would seriously damage the effectiveness of the new bill.

She claims the bill would be unfair to small business. That is just not true. Most small businesses already pay equally. It is the corporate culture that is clinging to the discriminatory pay practices, and that is who she (and other Republicans) are trying to protect.

Hutchison's amendment to the Ledbetter Bill would give victims only 120 days from the time they "should have known of the discrimination". What the hell does that mean? How is anyone supposed to know when someone "should have known"? This simply added another burden on the victim to prove that they not only didn't know, but that they couldn't have known.

This silly amendment would basically have codified the Supreme Court's terrible decision. Fortunately, the amendment was soundly defeated in a 55-40 vote.

But this certainly doesn't inspire faith in Senator Hutchison. She has already said she will be running for governor of Texas in 2010. The current Republican leadership in Austin already sides with the corporations against ordinary citizens in every area. Obviously, even if Hutchison is able to replace Governor Perry, there will be no change. It would be one corporate lackey replacing another.

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UPDATE - The senate vote on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was 61-36, and the bill was passed without any onerous amendments. Our Texas senators split on the issue. Senator hutchison wound up voting for the bill, while Senator Cornyn voted for his corporate masters and against fair pay for women and minorities.

Hutchison Does Something Right

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has come up with some stupid ideas in the past, but their newest idea may be the worst of all. They want to have the authority to pay the federal government back for the money they put into building some existing Texas freeways, and then turn those freeways into TOLL ROADS. They have to have lost their tiny minds!

Then they want to turn those toll roads over to private companies, so they can gouge the people of Texas to drive on roads they paid to build. This is not just a silly idea -- it is outrageous! How long are the people of Texas going to put up with these idiots? Every TxDOT management official should be terminated, and every elected official who had anything to do with appointing them should be booted out of office in the next election.

Our state Republican leadership has always chosen to enrich corporations at the expense of ordinary Texans, but this idea of giving our freeways to private corporations is way over the line. This idea needs to be stopped right now before it can go any further.

Fortunately, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison does not agree with TxDOT's mad scheme. I'm not a big fan of Senator Hutchison, but this time she's acting to protect the citizens of Texas. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and this is one of those times for Hutchison.

Senator Hutchison has introduced S2019 in the Senate. If it becomes law, this bill would:

* Prohibit collecting tolls on any federal highway already constructed (that is not already a tollway).

* Prohibit collecting tolls on any federal highway bought back by a state after the bill becomes law.

* Include the toll prohibition to all bridges and tunnels on the interstate highway system.

This is a good bill. I commend Senator Hutchison for introducing it, and I hope she can get it passed. The only thing that could make it better is if it prohibited construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor -- now that would be a great bill!

Hutchison Tours The Panhandle

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is currently touring the Texas Panhandle spreading the common Republican lies. She has made stops in Borger, Dumas and Canyon. Of course, fewer areas of Texas are redder than the Panhandle, so she has been drawing some pretty good crowds.

She told the crowds that she still supports Bush on Iraq. She said it would be a mistake to withdraw from Iraq, because it would then become a terrorist-supporting state. She didn't have any facts to back up that assumption, but then Republicans seldom see the need for factual information to back up their propaganda. It's enough for Hutchison that Bush says it is true.

She also said it would be hard to keep taxes and government spending down now that the Democrats control Congress. I guess it just slipped her mind that no Democratic president has spent as much money as Bush, even while Republicans controlled the Congress.

She also spoke out of both sides of her mouth on immigration. She said we needed to find new ways to allow immigrants to enter the country, but quickly dismissed any notion of an amnesty for those already here. I guess the immigrants already here are just a little too brown for Republican tastes.

Amarillo's Channel 7 TV News got to ride on Hutchison's tour bus and interview her. They promptly embarrassed Panhandle residents with the silly questions they asked. The high points of their interview were that Sen. Hutchison doesn't get car sick on her bus, and she's taking her family to see the musical "Texas" at Palo Duro Canyon.

How's that for hard-hitting political reporting?

Please Tell Me It's Not True !

I'm going to have to stop reading the Dallas Morning News if they're going to depress me with this kind of news. They are reporting that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is still considering a run for the governor's office in 2010.

Hasn't she done a bad enough job in the U.S. Senate? Does she really have to come home and devote all her energies to screwing up our state? I was hoping we could catch a break after Perry's disastrous regime.

The ultra-right wing senator (and that's what she is) was meeting Wednesday at a meeting of Texas chapters of Associated Builders and Contractors, when they asked her what it would take to get her in the race for president (these guys are obviously not very bright).

She quickly replied, "Nothing" but then said, "I might come home to Texas and run for governor".

The bad part is that even though she's done a very poor job as a senator, she's still popular with a lot of Texas voters. There's a very real chance she could actually get elected. Just the thought of following 8 years of Perry with 4 years of Hutchison makes me ill.

Excuse me while I throw up.