Chad’s Morning Brief: Early Voting Starts Today, Lubbock Blackout & Boil Water Notice, & More

Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of July 23, 2012. Give us your feedback below and tune in to Lubbock’s First News with Chad Hasty for these and many more topics from 6-9 am.

1. Early Voting Starts Today

Early voting begins today in the Texas primary runoffs. There are many races statewide to vote on, but the one that has received the most attention is the runoff between Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz. Both men are vying for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to replace Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Though Dewhurst received the most votes on Primary Day, it seems as though Ted Cruz has captured the momentum and is even outraising Dewhurst. According to the Texas Tribune:

Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruzraised an impressive $523,000 in the first 11 days of July for his U.S. Senate campaign, more than triple the haul that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst reported for the same period, new disclosures show.
Cruz has also slipped past Dewhurst in the total amount of contributions (excluding any self-funding) since both men began reporting their contributions to the Federal Election Commission. Cruz has raised a net $7.92 million, compared with $7.78 million for Dewhurst, giving him a $136,270 advantage in that category as of the end of the last reporting period.

The latest disclosures, provided by both campaigns to The Texas Tribune and embedded below, cover activity from July 1-11. In the previous period,  May 10 through June 30, Dewhurst had outraised Cruz by $226,000 on a year-to-date basis.

Can Cruz capture that momentum and turn out his people to the polls? That will be what so many are watching for. One thing is certain though. Many in the Republican party are happy that this race between Dewhurst and Cruz is ending.

2. Lubbock Blackout & Boil Water Notice (link)

Unless you were out of town this weekend, those in Lubbock had to deal with a massive blackout followed by a boil water notice that lasted until about 2:30pm on Sunday. So what happened to cause the blackout? The investigation is continuing but as of Saturday morning, officials had an idea:

In an exclusive interview with KFYO News, Paul Leonard with LP&L said the lightning arrestor unit would be removed from the Wadsworth Substation while an investigation takes place. The investigation will cover the failure of the unit and why backup systems failed, causing the outage.

The question many in Lubbock will be asking is why backup systems failed and why a city our size doesn't have something in place to better protect the water supply. A boil water notice for city our size isn't common, nor should it be.

Many questions should be asked and hopefully this will be an event the city can learn from.

3. Bush Skipping Convention (link)

Former President George W. Bush will continue to stay out of the spotlight this year. The former President has been invited to the Republican National Convention, but has declined.

“President Bush was grateful for the invitation to the Republican National Convention,” Bush spokesman Freddy Ford wrote in an e-mail.  “He supports Governor Romney and wants him to succeed. President Bush is confident that Mitt Romney will be a great President. But he’s still enjoying his time off the political stage and respectfully declined the invitation to go to Tampa.”

Asked if the former president had been invited to only attend or whether he was also asked to speak, Ford said the conversation didn’t get that far and the former president declined “before details were discussed.”

Probably a smart move. In many circles, Bush is still unpopular and he knows that. It's not deserved, but he knows where he currently stands in the court of public opinion. Having President Bush speak would only do damage to Mitt Romney at this point.

4. Penn State Penalties (link)

Sunday was a big day in the storyline of the Penn State scandal. Sunday morning we learned that Penn State officials ordered the statue of Joe Paterno to be removed from their football stadium. It was the right decision and it was nice to see Penn State officials finally see what they had to do.

We also found out on Sunday that today we will hear from the NCAA. The NCAA, according to CBS, is set to level unprecedented penalties against both the football program and the school.

"I've never seen anything like it," the source tells correspondent Armen Keteyian.

NCAA President Mark Emmert will make the announcement Monday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern at the organization's headquarters in Indianapolis.

The NCAA did not make details of the penalties public prior to the announcement, but industry sources tell CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy the fine will be at least $30 million, and perhaps as much as $60 million, for the university's involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Other stories have said that we won't see the "death penalty" that SMU once received, but this punishment could be on par with that decision. We'll find out soon.

Other Top Stories:

Mexico Urges U.S. to Review Gun Laws

Obama Campaign Spends More in June Than They Take In

Iran Plotting Attack?

These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of Lubbock’s First News with Chad Hasty. Tune in mornings 6-9am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.