05.26.09

What a day, and there’s still a week to go

Posted in 81st Legislature, Around The State, Commentary, Elections, Insurance Reform, Money In Politics, Right Wing Lies, The Lege, Uncategorized at 9:43 am by wcnews

Straus calls Democrats “obstructionists”.

Dunnam calls crisis “engineered” to keep insurance reform from coming up.

Yesterday GOP members of the house were still unwilling to compromise on their voter suppression bill, SB 362, to allow the normal flow of work in the house to get back on track.  The “chubbing” continued, this time on the 10% rule change.  then the GOP tried to put their false “spin” to work using some of the traditional media to do their dirty work.

Paul Burka is quickly becoming to Texas media what David Broder has become on the national scene.  The new medium may have passed him by, and his credibility may be waning.  As he tries to frame the Democrats principled stand to keep “voter suppression”, (his words) from coming up as “principles schminciples”.  BOR is calling him out by using his own words against him.

No two words ever summed up Paul Burka better than two he offered last week: “Principles, Schminciples.”

While “reporting” on voter ID over the last few days, Paul Burka has become the stenographer for the Republican Party of Texas. Following one of his rants on voter ID, Democrat Glenn Smith — who has posted a few items of his own here on BOR over the last few days — correctly pointed out that Burka is lambasting Democrats for standing up for our principles on voter ID; which is the same thing Republicans are doing.

Burka’s response (emphasis added):

Principles, schminciples. This is about public opinion. The Democrats are on the wrong side of public opinion and they’re behaving like children. That is not a good combination.

The “wrong side of public opinion” for standing up against voter suppression? And we’re not even the ones who have to call it voter suppression — Burka did it himself not more than a month ago, in his piece for Texas Monthly, “Manic Suppression.”

What started out as a fear that hordes of illegal immigrants would descend on the polls—a ridiculous scenario, since illegal immigrants want nothing to do with official government activities—has now become voter suppression, pure and simple. [...]

Voter ID is a terrible idea, bad for democracy and mean-spirited to boot. We can only hope it won’t soon be the law in Texas.

So what has happened to that “we can only hope” over the last month? Politics, my friends. Politics. And if there is one thing that Burka will place over “voter suppression, pure and simple” it is politics. Because he is not a reporter; he is not a party advocate; he is not a policy expert; he is not a Democrat; he is not a Republican. Paul Burka — as soon as there is any partisanship — forgets that he is one of the brightest political reporters in the state, and becomes that guy sitting at the horse track, eating bags and bags of peanuts, yelling at the horses and jockeys at how they are all doing it wrong.

Principles, schminciples.

Of course that wasn’t it. Later in the day House Elections Committee chair Todd Smith (R-Euless) had put out the latest GOP attempt to spin and misinfomr on voter suppression.  Several in the traditional media lapped it up like manna from heaven and posted it on their blogs as if it was fact. They included Jenny Hoff of KXAN, Emily Ramshaw (added a little context) of the DMN, and Burka. When called out on his blog about the differences between the 1997 vote and the current voter suppression bill  Burka said this.

I didn’t “buy” the Todd Smith spin. I presented it.

Later someone responded with this to Burka.

Oooh, Todd Smith did some research, and like a good stenographer, you put it on your blog. The 1997 proposal is completely different for all of the reasons that others have listed above. Voter ID, as incorporated in SB 362, is just a repackaged poll tax. You’d think Todd Smith would have something better to do than throw out this useless argument.

Now all Texas pols should be clear. If you have any misleading talking points just make sure you get them to Burka and he’ll post them on his blog.

But this post isn’t just about the traditional media’s spin on voter suppression.  GOP Speaker Joe Straus attmepting it too. Via Floor Pass, Straus Calls Dems Rule Abiding “Obstructionists”.

The generally press-averse Speaker Joe Straus (pictured) has been a rare sight over the chub-filled weekend, but this afternoon he took a moment to share with the press some of his thoughts on the House’s current debacle situation.

BOR takes him to task, Hey Straus – It’s Your House! Do You Know How to Lead?. But Rep. Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) says that this whole thing was likely engineered by the GOP to try and avoid voting on insurance reform, Dunnam Calls Crisis “Engineered”.

“Someone who controls the agenda, and decides when we are going to hear bills, can’t complain when they set the bills that they say are so important on the last few days,” Dunnam said. “They’re the one s who set them on the last few days and now they are complaining that we’re not going to get to them. That’s sounds like something that’s engineered – a crisis that’s engineered.”

Dunnam noted that the House has not appeared to be in any rush to get to work this session.

“We didn’t take up bills on the House floor until maybe latest point of any session,” Dunnam said. “Why wasn’t insurance reform on the house floor weeks ago? Why wasn’t the windstorm insurance bill on the floor weeks and weeks ago? Why’d we go home last week every day at 6 or 7 o’clock so that committees could go have dinner? And then turn around and say that [Democrats] are wasting time? Those were decisions that the Speaker made.”

According to Dunnam, Democrats have been actively seeking a compromise, offering Republicans no less than 10 variations on plans to take up Voter ID in a structured way that would allow the issue to be dealt with quickly, all of which have been declined without explanation. Dunnam believes alterior motives may be driving his political opponents. “[Republicans] are offering no compromise. They seem to be very pleased with the way things are going. I think that it’s clear, from what they’ve told me, that it’s because they don’t want to get to the insurance reform bill.”

Because it is lower on the calendar, which Republicans insist on following, the sunset bill on the Texas Department of Insurance will likely live or die along with Voter ID.

Dunnam also said that there is always a crisis at the end of a session, but deadlines can always be suspended. In the end, many things “miraculously” get passed.

A couple of points that Dunnam makes is that he’s putting the onus for what’s been a slow moving house all session long at the foot of the Speaker. Surely much of this could have gotten done much sooner. Why Straus and the calendars committee decided to schedule things the way they did can only be answered by Straus and Rep. Brian McCall who chairs the House Calendars Committee. The other point Dunnam makes is that once the “deadline” has come and gone there will still be a way to get things done that need to get done by suspending the rules to take up legislation. It’s just that it takes 100 votes to suspend the rules after Tuesday midnight.  The question then becomes, does Straus have to ability to get that done?  (It’s likely Tom Craddick is lurking back there somewhere.)

But don’t discount the GOP’s fear of insurance reform playing a part in all of this. It’s an issue that the public favor by a wide margin, as they do Voter ID, but is much higher on most Texans list of important issues that Voter ID. Voter ID plays in the base of both parties, but does little to drive the voters in the middle to the polls. But extremely high insurance rates makes everybody want to vote the bums out that didn’t allow reform to happen. The GOP is, at the least, partially owned by the insurance lobby and can’t vote for this bill, but to get reelected they can’t vote against it.  They’re in a box on inusrance reforem and they’d much rather it just go away. Here are the results of a recent poll, Texans Overwhelmingly Support Reform.

One of the most well-reasoned pieces from the traditional media on the voter suppression standstill comes from Evan Smith, President and Editor in Chief at Texas Monthly, That’s the Way the Game is Played, Bubby.

As I write this, charges of obstructionism are flying in the House — that’s apparently the worst slur Speaker Straus, ever genteel, can muster — but it seems clear to me that it is the House Republicans, rather than the House Democrats (or the Senate Republicans), who have something to answer for here. The Senate Rs decided they were okay with upending decades of tradition in spiking the two-thirds rule at the start of the session, and because there were enough Rs to do it — elections have consequences — they were well within their right. I may not like it, and you may not like it, but they had the procedural authority at their disposal. Over in the House, where the split is 76-74, because the last three election cycles have seen the GOP squander a much larger majority, the Rs are powerless, really, to stop the Ds from exercising a similar, and similarly legitimate, procedural authority. Even the Speaker himself concedes that point

[...]

As for the explaining to be done, I would say it falls to those people who are so hell-bent on passing voter ID ahead of windstorm, insurance sunset, and other bills that pass the test of pressing need. Does voter ID pass that test? Honestly? I understand the reason for it, and I can even accept that every check on possible fraud is worth having in place, provided it doesn’t disenfranchise upstanding voters. But can anyone who supports it, in the Senate or the House, look me in the eye and tell me it’s more pressing than, or even as pressing as, the other issues presently languishing?

The Texas GOP started this fight back in January when they labeled it the single most important issue facing Texas today. The fate of this session was sealed by the GOP members of the Senate back in January. If those Senators are mad because their bills aren’t getting through the house they only have themselves to blame.  Or as Rambo said, “They drew first blood”.

I recommend checking the Burnt Orange Report on a regular basis.  They are doing an excellent job of keeping up with what is going on as session winds down.

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