Chad’s Morning Brief: Governor Rick Perry Calls Second Special Session, Did Dewhurst Fail the GOP, & More
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of June 27, 2013. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or with the radioPup App.
1. Special Session 2 (link)
Well that didn't take very long at all. Governor Rick Perry yesterday did not waste much time in calling a second special session. On July 1, lawmakers will head back to Austin and take up S.B. 5 along with transportation and juvenile justice.
“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state," Perry said. "Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do."
The governor had been almost universally urged by conservative grassroots activists and Republican lawmakers to call a new session after Democrats, with the help of boisterous activists in the Senate gallery, killed abortion restrictions in the final seconds of the first special session, which ended in chaos Tueday night.
What's not immediately clear is if Perry will make good on his vow earlier to make a decision about his own political future by July 1. Now that there's a new session about to start, he might choose to delay an announcement so that he won't be considered a lame duck while legislation is being debated.
Thank you Governor Perry for calling lawmakers back. Now, please add campus carry to the session.
2. Did Dewhurst Blow It? (link)
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst is getting a lot of blame for what happened with SB 5 on Tuesday night.
David Dewhurst’s dream ended like a fairy tale: The clock struck 12 and the lieutenant governor’s bid for conservative redemption came to pieces.
Tuesday might have been his worst political day ever, adding speed to the political tailspin that began a year ago when he was upset by fellow Republican Ted Cruz in the race for U.S. Senate.
On Tuesday, Dewhurst led the Republican Senate into a loss heard all over the country, waiting too long to finally break a Fort Worth Democrat’s filibuster on abortion legislation and then losing the opportunity for a final victory in a procedural quagmire attended by hundreds of noisy reproductive rights activists.
It made Wendy Davis a hero for her side, and Dewhurst a goat for his.
"I didn't lose control of what we were doing," he told reporters when it was over, and clear that a contested vote near midnight had occurred just after the deadline instead of just before it. "We had an unruly mob."
That bit about the mob is true. Their deafening demonstration ate up precious minutes as midnight approached. But it was the lieutenant governor’s own fault that the crowd got within range of that hour, and his role in the failure of legislation that had an easy majority in the Senate is fodder for political opponents — including two statewide officials and a state senator from Houston — who are challenging Dewhurst in next March’s Republican primary.
Now there is a stronger rationale for the candidacies of Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston; Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples;and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, three Republicans who’ll share next year’s ballot with him.
Patterson was first out of the gate with a public critique, sending an email to supporters Wednesday morning that laid the whole mess at Dewhurst’s feet.
“Democracy took a hit last night in the Texas Senate,” he wrote. “Who is to blame for this breakdown of decorum and procedure in the state's highest legislative chamber? Everybody is pointing fingers this morning, but in the end, the responsibility for the Texas Senate falls on one man. The lieutenant governor of Texas is solely responsible for the Senate.”
Why would the Republican management in state government create such a lovely stage for Davis and her fellow Democrats, who had been threatening to run the clock for several days leading up to what turned out to be a filibuster that put her in the national spotlight. If you’re going to re-enact a Frank Capra movie, it seems silly to give Jimmy Stewart’s role to someone else.
It wasn’t the first evidence, or even the strongest evidence, of the lieutenant governor’s tin ear.
Yes, Dewhurst screwed up, but Senator Robert Duncan didn't do much better. When the spotlight was on him, he seem confused and not very powerful. Typical really of the Senate Republicans.
3. Voter ID Lawsuit (link)
Even though the Supreme Court has upheld Voter ID laws, one Texas Congressman thinks they are unconstitutional.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Democratic congressman has joined seven others in filing a federal lawsuit to keep Texas from enforcing its voter ID law.
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth filed the papers Wednesday in Corpus Christi, calling the requirement to show a state-issued photo ID card at the ballot box unconstitutional.
The lawsuit lodged comes just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court declared a section of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. That decision overthrew a decision by federal judges in Washington that Texas could not enforce the voter ID law.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced hours later that he would enforce it, even though the Washington court said it discriminated against minorities. The Veasey suit uses the same evidence and asks the Corpus Christi court to block it.
Give me a break. Why is it that Liberals are fine showing an ID to board a plane, buy booze or cigarettes, but asking them to show an ID when voting is terrible? Show your ID and vote. It's not hard.
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