April 2011
15 posts
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Parliamentary Tactic Useless for House D's →
Jim Abrams of the Associated Press has an excellent article about a tactic previously used to great effect by the House GOP, but which has become useless for House Democrats: the motion to recommit. Norman Ornstein addressed the Republican tactic last year in Roll Call: The Motion to Recommit, Hijacked by Politics (5/19/2010). Donald Wolfensberger has a paper on the history of the motion to...
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Book Review: A Hanging In Nacogdoches
I hope everyone had a relaxing Easter weekend; I know I did - read several more chapters of The Path to Power by Robert Caro and finished reading A Hanging in Nacogdoches by Gary Borders. The later is the story of a murder and its aftermath in a small East Texas town: Nacogdoches. In 1902, a white family in Blackjack (a small community outside Nacogdoches) was murdered - the father, mother and...
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Stunning TX Senate News: There's a Democrat!
For the usual reason - “demographic change” - the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is planning to target Texas. Forget that in 2008, there was a Hispanic candidate for Senate - Rick Noriega - who ran against John Cornyn (final results: 42%-54%). Yes, the 2012 race would be for an open seat, but when you have Republican Gov. Rick Perry capturing almost 40% of the Hispanic vote...
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Texas House Redistricting Fun
The initial maps for both the Senate and the House are out, but the House map is the interesting one. In particular in the map drawn for district 149. They got really creative on this one: they combined Burnet County (currently in HD 54) with Milam County (currently in HD 20) through a sliver of Williamson County where it borders Travis County. Neither conservative nor liberal bloggers from...
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The Relevance of the Civil War
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has released the results of a new survey about the Civil War. The results proved to be very interesting. For example, they asked the respondents what the main cause of the Civil War was: 48% said states’ rights and 38% said slavery. However, the two issues were inseparable, as one can see from Texas’ declaration of causes for...
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Hamiltonian America →
The Economist has this short article about Hamilton today on their blog: Democracy in America. Personally, in the battle between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, I come down on the side of Hamilton.
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Budget Cuts Effect UN-Reno Athletics
After a very successful season, the Nevada Wolfpack (13-1) beat Boston College in the Kraft Hunger Bowl and finished the season ranked 15th in the nation. But in the future, the Wolfpack might not be participating in a bowl game (Reno Gazette-Journal, 4/6/11). Here in Texas, most Division 1 college football programs pay for their own programs, as well as other sports, out of their football revenue...
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Another Redistricting Lawsuit Filed
I’ve been sitting on this story until after viewing the Texas Tribune’s Conversation with Redistricting chairs Rep. Burt Solomons and Sen. Kel Seliger. The Mexican American Legislative Caucus has filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas to prevent them from using the current Census data to redistrict (The Monitor, 4/6/11; Houston Chronicle, 4/5/11; Texas Tribune, 4/5/11). MALC claims...
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Fiesta Bowl Peeps Are in Hot Salsa
In relation to Fiesta Bowl employees being reimbursed for campaign contributions (see here), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (CBS Sports, 4/5/11). And CREW isn’t the only group getting involved. Playoff PAC has filed complaints with the IRS against the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange Bowls (Washington Post, 4/6/11)....
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The Impeachment of Gov. Ferguson
Some events occur so rarely in the course of the political history of a state that they become something of a curiosity. The impeachment of an executive officer is one of these events. In the 200 years that the United States has existed, two Presidents have been impeached, while another resigned from office rather than face this ignominy (though he was not able to avoid it). And in the 175...
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Just Read: The Impeachment of Jim Ferguson
I found this little gem of a book at Half Price Books here in Austin (one of the reasons I love the store so much). In it, Bruce Rutherford examines the only impeachment of a governor to occur in the 175 year history of Texas as a state. Gov. James E. Ferguson was one of the many characters who have found a place in Texas politics and is the only one who offended enough people to get himself...
