Time for a New Texas Speaker of the House

As many of you know, Joe Straus has been the speaker of the house for the Texas legislature these past few years and he is in this position as a Republicans.  What you may not know is all the politics that went on behind the scene to get him elected.  Many democrats voted him into this seat as they knew that the speaker appoints the key positions over all the committees.  He is able to appoint all the "chairs" and he did so by giving key Democrats chairmanship over key committees.  Each committee chair sets up the docket or the agenda of bills and sets the of b
ills to be discussed.  With a liberal republican as the speaker the Democrats got their agenda in without the people being the wiser. 

Well this maybe worked when the house was sitting with 76 Republicans to the 74 Democrats as was the case in the last legislature when the "special eleven" Democrats came across the isle to "help" elect him.   These special eleven have been known to call themselves as the "cardinals" and the speaker is their "pope".  They joined together with the other liberal Republicans and with all the Democrats (who were in the minority) and together they created a working majority and elected this liberal Republican (Joe Straus) as House Speaker – that is, he was the choice of Democrats more than of Republicans.

Well now we have a 99 Republicans and YOU the voter need to be made aware of what is going on here in our Texas house and what you can do to fix it.  There is very little about Speaker Straus that would show him to be a republican except for the capital "R" that is put in parenthesis behind his name.  What better way to express my point than to show you his own voting history. 

Here are a few of the bills that this current speaker has supported:

• SB 419 - vote 672 in 2005:  A bill that would make it easier to perform late-term abortions.
• SB 6 - vote 327 in 2005:  A bill regarding homosexuals as foster parents.
• HB 10 - vote 929 in 2007:  A bill regarding expanded casino gambling.
• HB 2265 - vote 749 in 2007: Increased gaming and gambling.
• HB 168 - vote 357 in 2005: Increased sale and consumption of alcohol during Sunday morning church hours.
• SB 1626 - vote 852 in 2005: Making it easier to sell alcohol without community approval as is currently required.
• SB 1 - vote 946 in 2005: Increasing the state budget spending by an amazing 19% over only two years.Groups that supported the speaker:
• In the 2007 session he received a 100% voting record from the radical pro-abortion group NARAL.
• The pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood contributed to his re-election campaign.

Here are some of the bills he opposed:

• HB 2685 - votes 384, 437 and 1407 in 2007: Using statistically-proven methods to strengthen marriage and reduce divorce by encouraging premarital counseling.
• HB 2136 - vote 592 in 2007:  Parental rights, opposing a bill to let parents kno w the service-referrals that school counselors are making for their children.

Some additional facts regarding the Speaker and Bills that were killed:

• Voter ID - which had a 90% support rate among Republicans and had passed the Republican Senate and Governor Perry was ready to sign but it was killed in the house by him and his liberal group of politicians.
• A popular pro-life bill which had 70% support among Republicans and had passed the Republican Senate and Governor Perry was ready to sign but was killed in the house by him and his liberal group of politicians.
• An independent political science professor (Dr. Mark Jones of Rice University) has now statistically proven just how successful the Democrats have been under this Republican Speaker and has authoritatively documented that the Democrats passed more of their agenda under Republican Speaker Joe Straus than they did when Democrat Pete Laney was their Speaker.

So with 99 Republicans elect this year, this issue is resolved, right?  WRONG!!
The following information came from David Barton (former Vice-President of the Republican Party of Texas)and rather than re-writing his entire letter, I thought I would just copy it here for you...

The State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) of the Republican Party of Texas just passed a resolution calling on Republican members of the State House to select their Speaker in Republican Caucus and then carry that selection to the floor of the House and pass it there. http://www.unifiedrepublicans.com/
In this manner, Republicans rather than Democrats will select the Republican Speaker of the Republican-controlled House. If the Republicans in caucus choose Joe Straus as their Speaker, that is fine; at least the decision will have been made by Republicans rather than Democrats.

Regrettably, however, following the passage of that common-sense resolution by the State Party, Speaker Straus' liberal Republicans called the State Party and threatened to withhold $170,000 they had pledged unless the Party rescinded its call for a Republican Speaker to be chosen by Republicans.

Republicans have worked too hard to allow a handful of liberal Republican State Representatives to give the House over to Democrats. In fact, in this election, there will be a significant increase in the number of conservative Republicans elected to the House, making it even more important that the Speaker be chosen by Republicans. In order for our last decade of hard work in electing conservative Republicans to not go to waste, I urge you to:

1.    Contact your state representative. http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/

2.    Send them a copy of the SREC resolution. http://www.unifiedrepublicans.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2

3.    Ask your Representative PUBLICLY to announce their support of the resolution for Republicans to select the Republican Speaker by signing on to the website provided for that purpose. http://www.unifiedrepublicans.com/

Texas has become the envy of the nation by enacting conservative economic and social policies in the legislature. Let's not let liberal Republicans join with Democrats to stop that progress. Please act today to contact your state representative. After all, what is controversial about Republicans simply meeting together, deciding who will be the Speaker candidate, and emerging with a single voice?  What could be more unifying?

Please act today. And please share this information with your conservative friends.

---end of letter from David Barton.

There are 150 State Representatives in our Texas House so 76 is the magic number.  Speaker Strauss has already announced that he has more than enough support to win re-election as the chamber's leader as he has 122 lawmakers (more than 4/5th of the House membership) who promise to vote for him when the Legislature convenes in January.  Immediately after the elections newly elected Republicans were being "wined and dined" regarding all the "opportunities" that would be available to them if they would "pledge" their support.

With redistricting as one of the many items on the upcoming agenda for this legislature, we NEED a Conservative Speaker MORE than ever before. Voter ID and Pro-life agenda were already stopped under his leadership.

Finally,  here is a list of the 25 members of the Texas House (listed below) who have NOT pledged (this number is now less than 25 as some have now pledged) to Straus.  Look for YOUR representative and see if they have pledged support or not.  Either way (if your rep's name is here or not), contact them and express YOUR opinion and then make the phone call and send them a copy of the resolution that David Barton stated above.  Ask them to PUBLICLY state their support of the resolution and while you have them on the phone voice your outrage if they support Straus!  What we saw in this last election is that WE THE PEOPLE need to continue to SPEAK UP!  We need to make our ELECTED officials HEAR US!

25 Members (Number is the District and the "X" = new member):

• 2 Flynn
• 3 Cain X
• 6 Berman
• 7 Simpson
• 9 Christian
• 12 White X
• 26 Howard, Charlie
• 30 Morrison
• 45 Isaac X
• 61 King
• 66 Taylor, Van X
• 74 Gallego (now has pledged to Straus)
• 82 Craddick
• 83 Perry
• 85 Landtroop X
• 88 Chisum
• 96 Zedler X (he withdrew his initial pledge to Straus)
• 101 Burkett X
• 106 Anderson X
• 107 Sheets X
• 117 Garza (now has pledged to Straus)
• 134 Davis X
• 136 Woolley

Here are the names of the infamous eleven: (as published and distributed at the State Republican Convention in Dallas 2010).
BEFORE the primaries and the elections, these were the remaining ten of the original eleven...Reps. Jim Pitt,s Rob Eissler, Byron Cook, Edmund Kuempel, Jim Keffer, Burt Solomons, Charlie Geren, Tommy Merritt (lost his primary), Delwin Jones (lost his primary) and Brian McCall (resigned to take an appointment to head a Texas college).  If Speaker Straus would have been "elected" among only Republicans, he would never have won this seat.  There were only 10 liberal Republicans who joined Democrats to elect him and he rewarded these ten with choice assignments and committee chars.  The gang of 10 was now down to the gang of 7 (again BEFORE this November election).

A Final List of Reasons Why We Don't Want Joe Straus as our Republican Speaker: (as published and distributed at the State Republican Convention in Dallas 2010).

• He joined John Sharp (D) to host a fundraiser for Patrick Rose (D-incumbent) to defeat conservative challenger Jason Isaac (R - who WON!)
• Texans for Economic Development (TED) is a pro-gambling PAC run by the former head of the State Democratic Party.  Last cycle TED spent $3000,000 in their attempt to defeat conservative House members including Reps. Betty Brown, Nathan Macias, Bill Zedler and Rep. Phil King.  Three of these conservatives lost because the Straus family gave $80,000 to TED. Rep. Phil King was the lone survivor.
• TED ran large amounts of its money through Parent PAC, whose consultant is Roy Fletcher - a business partner with Bil Clinton campaign strategist James Carville.  Like TED, Parent PAC also targets conservatives in the Texas House (and on the State Board of Education), having spent almost $1 million to remove Conservative Republicans.  (Several of Straus' Republican lieutenants also wrote out large contributions to Parent PAC.)
• Speaker Straus' political director is Gordon Johnson, a Democrat who ran TED.  Straus chose as his original Chief of Staff former Democrat State Rep. Clyde Alexander; his new Chief of Staff is Denise Davis, who was a central figure in the House coup to overthrow former conservative House Speaker, Tom Craddick.
• In the spring primaries, Speaker Straus used his resources in attempts to defeat the more Conservative candidate (such as as Van Taylor, Charles Perry and David Simpson) running against a liberal Republican House member.
• This year, 64 Conservative state legislators formed GOPAC-TX in "increase the number of Republicans serving the Texas Legislature by recruiting, training and funding conservative candidates."  After an excellent and effective beginning, Austin lobbyists report that the Speaker put out the word they were to give NO more money to GOPAC-TX; hence, funding has dried up for this outstanding conservative organization committed to defeating Democrats.
• Conservative State Senator Dan Patrick formed Independent Conservative Republicans of Texas (ICROT) for a purpose similar to GOPAC-TX; ad while 90% of House and Senate Republicans joined the group as charter members, Speaker Straus and six of his lieutenants refused to do so.
• Rene Oliveira is a big tax and spend Democrat House member, receiving an abysmal 35% rating from Texas for Fiscal Responsibility.  Nevertheless, Speaker Straus made Oliveira Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee with the responsibility of handling all tax policy; Oliveira has announced that he is seeking $3-4 billion in new tax revenues.
• Speaker Straus made lieutenant Todd Smith Chairman of the Elections Committee and Smith was able to prevent the Voter ID bill from coming to a vote, even though that measure had received the support of 93% of Republican voters in the primary.
• Speaker Straus made Republican lieutenant Burt Solomons Chairman of State Affairs Committee and Solomons kept the pro-life sonogram bill as well as all immigration legislation from coming to a vote.  Incidentally, as a reflection of his philosophy, Solomons had previously even objected to teaching that American is a blessed and unique nation (i.e., American Exceptionalism) and he also adamantly opposed a house bill to have Texas students recite portions of the Declaration of Independence.
• Speaker Straus made Republican lieutenant Edmund Kuempel Chairman of the Licensing Committee and while Straus' other lieutenants kept measure such as Voter ID, immigration and the pro-life sonogram bill from coming to the floor, Kuempel did get pro-gambling bills to emerge from his committee.  (The Straus family owns racetracks and gambling interest across the state and supports gambling and VLTs).
• Control of redistricting for the next ten years and Texas is expected to gain 4 new US congressional seats as well as draw improved prospects for Republican  state legislative districts, Speaker Straus made Delwin Jones (former Democrat and most liberal Republican in the House) Chairman of the Redistricting Committee.
• Speaker Straus inexplicably appointed Democrats Mike Villarreal and Aaron Pena to head redistricting hearing in cities such as San Antonio, Corpus Christi, McAllen, Lubbock, etc. (The testimony collected in those hearings will unquestionably be used in lawsuits filed by Democrat and liberals to contest the redistricting lines that will be drawn next year by Republican leaders and Speaker Straus is aiding this inevitable Democrat challenge.)
• Straus' Republican lieutenants were dispatched into primary races to work against conservative candidates; and in seats where conservative Republican members were retiring (e.g., David Swinford, Frank Corte, Joe Crabb, etc.), they worked to replace the retiring conservative with moderates and liberals.
• Straus Republican lieutenants Charlie Geren, Jim Keffer and Byron Cook aired radio ads supporting Democrat Mark Homer over conservative Republican Kirby Hollingsworth, helping the Democrat to a narrow win.
• Straus Republican lieutenant Jim Keffer did mail pieces for Democrat Mark Strama to help him defeat his Republican opponent.
• Straus lieutenants Dan Branch and Jim Pitts are helping Democrat Ellen Cohen against her Republican challenger, doing events with her in her district.
• Power Houston Democrats Sylvia Garcia (Democrat County Commissioner in Harris County) and Elyse Lanier (wife of the former liberal Democrat mayor Bob Lanier) sponsored a Democrat fundraiser for Speaker Straus with numerous Democrat officials and high ranking union officials.

There are additional examples, but these are sufficient to affirm tat the greatest threat to the conservative Republican gains in the Texas State House is not from Democrats but instead may be from Speaker Straus and his "Republican" lieutenants.

In closing, "Once...I said, 'This is a wonderful time to be alive,' and I meant that.  I meant that we're lucky not to live in pale and timid times.  We've been blessed with the opportunity to stand for something - for liberty and freedom and fairness.  And these are things worth fighting for - worth devoting our lives to.  And we have good reason to be hopeful and optimistic.  We've made much progress already!  So, let us go forth with good cheer and stout hearts - happy warriors out to seize back a country and a world to freedom!" - Ronald Reagan's words from March 8, 1985.