The Peter Morrison Report
In his latest report, Peter Morrison offers his review of the recent Texas primary and offers some insight into the strategery employed by the RINO’s in the state congress to thwart true conservative candidates.
Summary of this report:
The Texas primary has come and gone, and it brought both good news and bad news to Texas conservatives. Joe Straus survived a primary challenge for his own seat, but many of his cronies went down to defeat. Unfortunately, we lost a few staunch conservatives, and the new redistricting maps drawn up by Straus and his moderates played a big part in that. Several races are still undecided, and are headed for runoffs in July, giving us another opportunity to elect strong conservative leaders. We also have a challenger for Speaker of the House.
Full report:
After being delayed by lawsuits, the Texas primary finally took place on May 29th. Texas conservatives had high hopes that the passion and energy that were unleashed a few years ago had not diminished, and that the results of the GOP primary would be a clear message to the GOP about what kind of candidates we’re looking for. Unfortunately, the results weren’t that clear cut, but were more of a mixed bag. There was some bad news, but there was a lot of reason for hope, too.
We’ll start with the bad news, which is that some very good people were defeated in their bids for re-election. Three candidates whose defeats will have the most impact were Gail Lowe, Leo Berman, and Wayne Christian. Gail Lowe, who fought so valiantly to make sure that schoolchildren in Texas get a real education based on the actual facts of history, instead of left-wing PC fantasies, lost her seat on the Texas State Board of Education. Leo Berman and Wayne Christian, two of the finest conservatives in Austin, both lost House re-election bids to GOP challengers.
Of course, there are many factors that come into play in every election, but there’s no getting around the fact that one of the biggest factors in some of these losses was the redistricting plan created by Joe Strauss and his team of RINOs. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that one of the purposes of the new redistricting map was to punish certain strong conservatives. It seems clear that the RINOs deliberately forced candidates like Wayne Christian and Gail Lowe into these new, artificial districts filled with people who don’t know them, and whose voting patterns would make it much more difficult for them to be re-elected. Here’s what Michael Quinn Sullivan said about the Wayne Christian loss:
“A dark spot on the night was the loss of State Rep. Wayne Christian. But even there, the Straus team had to radically re-draw Christian’s district and spend heavily from the Austin lobby.”
The good news is that most conservative Republicans won their primaries and that several Straus supporters went down to defeat, including three of his closest cronies (Vicki Truitt, Rob Eissler, and Mike Hamilton). In addition, two more of Straus’s pals (Chuck Hopson and Sid Miller) didn’t win their contests; they only managed to qualify for a runoff election on July 31st. Other contests resulted in runoffs, too. This means that there are still several opportunities for conservatives to make a difference when it comes to deciding who will represent us in November.
In fact, there’s no reason conservatives can’t be the deciding factor in every one of the upcoming runoff races. That’s because turnout will probably be very low. According to official government figures, only 1.4 million registered Republicans came out to vote in the primary on May 29th. That’s an 11% turnout. Numbers for runoff elections are usually even lower than that. One political expert is predicting that between 6% and 8% of GOP voters will come out on July 31st. Compare that to a general election, when about half of all registered voters generally come out to vote.
A low turnout is great news for committed conservatives. The lower the turnout, the more impact each vote has, which means that if we all take a little time out of our schedules and go to the polling place on July 31st, while most other voters are too apathetic to bother, we can dominate the runoff races, elect people who will stand for our principles, and send another strong message to Joe Straus and the RINOs in the Republican establishment. We can’t let up now; it’s imperative that we keep letting the GOP establishment know that we expect our elected leaders to fight for true conservative values, instead of going along to get along. It might take a while, but if we refuse to give up, eventually they’ll get the message.
On that note, Rep. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) has filed paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission declaring that he will mount a run for Speaker of the House, opposing Joe Straus. This is excellent news. It takes real courage to oppose a sitting Speaker, because there are consequences when you go up against the man who calls all the shots. Rep. Hughes has already proven that he’s not afraid to challenge the status quo. He vocally withdrew his support for Straus in 2010, after he received word that GOP members who didn’t support Straus would be punished by having their districts redrawn unfavorably. He never wavered even as he endured a firestorm of criticism after his announcement. Many lesser men would have apologized or said “my remarks were taken out of context.” Bryan Hughes is a true conservative with a lot of character, and he deserves our full support in his challenge to Straus.
Here are the runoff races to be decided on July 31st. I’ve marked candidates that I’m endorsing with an asterisk. (I’m not offering an endorsement in every race.)
Railroad Commissioner – Full Term: Christi Craddick vs Warren Chisum
Railroad Commissioner – Unexpired Term: Barry Smitherman vs Greg ParkerState Board of Education:
*Gail Spurlock vs Tincy Miller
*Tom Maynard vs Rebecca OsborneSupreme Court Justice, Place 4 – *John Devine vs David Medina
State Senator, District 25 *Donna Campbell vs Jeff Wentworth
Texas House:
*JD Sheffield vs Sid Miller
*Travis Clardy vs Chuck Hopson
*Jon Cole vs Jeff Leach HD
*Jim Landtroop vs Ken King HD
*Stephanie Klick vs Kenneth SappUS Senate – *Ted Cruz vs David Dewhurst
US House
District 14 – Randy Weber vs Felicia Harris
District 15 – Eddie Zamora vs Dale A. Brueggemann
District 25 – *Wes Riddle vs Roger Williams
District 34 – Adela Garza vs Jessica Puente Bradshaw
District 36 – *Steve Stockman vs Stephen TakachSo make sure to vote on July 31st, and let’s do everything we can to support Bryan Hughes in his run for Speaker of the House.
The Peter Morrison Report
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreportSources:
http://libertylinked.com/posts/9898/the-loss-of-texas-conservative/View.aspx
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/18659323/texas-primary-turnout-was-low-runoff-may-be-lower
http://www.empowertexans.com/features/texas-voters-repudiate-team-straus/
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/politics/straus-faces-hughes-in-speaker-race
Don’t you think with Obama’s economy, those new job seekers are going to need all the help they can get? Aren’t there more important issues for a federal judge to be concerned with?
Apparently not.
Peter Morrison is fired up about it in his latest report:
Just last week, a federal tyrant threatened the Texas Senate with grounding all flights in Texas if the anti-groping bill was passed. Yesterday another federal tyrant, an unelected appointed-for-life federal judge named Fred Biery, banned any and all prayer at the Medina Valley ISD graduation ceremonies.
He went as far as to order students and administration that they could not use words like “prayer,” or “bow their heads,” or “amen” upon penalty of jail time for contempt of court.
Folks, it doesn’t get any more outrageous than this. There’s only one real solution: civil disobedience by students at the Medina Valley ISD graduation, followed by interposition and nullification of the judge’s order by the governor. The sovereign state should interpose itself between the tyrant and its citizens to prevent abuses of the Constitution, and nullify this judge’s unconstitutional order. It’s the only solution that preserves the students’ rights in time for their graduation.
Rick Perry talks a good talk about protecting state’s rights. This is where the rubber meets the road. Governor Perry should order state troopers and other law enforcement personnel to protect the administration and students of Medina Valley ISD from arrest. Furthermore, this federal judge ought to be tried for unlawful assaults and threats. If I illegally threatened to kidnap and jail someone for praying in public, that would be a crime, and it’s the same crime even if it’s done by an unelected tyrant in a black robe.
Take action:
Please send a fax to Governor Perry asking him to use every resource of the state to protect these students’ civil rights:
http://www.morrisonreport.com/fax_test/index.php?faxID=99
The Peter Morrison Report
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreportSources:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/02/prayer-prohibited-at-graduation-ceremony/
You know, last time I checked, the First Amendment provides us with freedom of religion, to worship in the manner of our choosing, not freedom from religion. No one in the graduation audience will be forced to pray. I promise. If you don’t want to, then don’t. Go get a beverage or a souvenir. Or you could just stand there and politely keep your yap shut for a moment. The Muslim terrorists in Gitmo have more religious freedom than those on the left would allow our students.
They don’t hate any God. The left hates the Christian God.
Video and more commentary at Gateway Pundit:
Far Left Judge Bans Prayer at Texas Graduation – Threatens Jail Time (Video)
UPDATE: Prayers answered.
Appeals panel overturns Medina Valley graduation prayer ban
Thanks to Kurt from A Trainwreck in Maxwell for the email.
Yesterday marked the 175th Texas Independence Day, which should serve to remind us that as Texans, we should all do our part to help preserve what our ancestors fought and died for.
Along those lines, here is an email I received this week from Peter Morrison asking Texans to help themselves and their heritage by pressuring the Texas Congress to pass E-Verify legislation which will ensure businesses hire Texans and people in the state legally.
You can sign up to receive his informative newsletters here.
Peter Morrison Report:
Help Protect Texas Jobs from Illegal Aliensâ€
I wanted to send out a legislative update on immigration issues. There are other important issues, but this issue above all others relates to the survival of our country and state.
Most immigration bills are processed by the State Affairs committee in the Texas House. Last session, Chairman Burt Solomons killed most of the good immigration bills. Rep. Solomons seems to have gotten the message this session, however, as he is one of the main sponsors of a bill to ban sanctuary cities. However, Mr. Solomons is no longer chair of the State Affairs Committee. That honor has fallen to Rep. Byron Cook.
Here’s what Rep. Cook has done so far:
He has scheduled a number of good bills for a hearing. Remember last time that the main way Solomons killed bills was by delaying or denying hearings. So far, it appears Rep. Cook is playing fair with the immigration bills.
However, there is one particular bill that has not yet been scheduled for a hearing and it happens to be, in my opinion, the most important immigration bill we must pass. It also happens to be the bill that the Cheap Labor Lobby, and the traitor wing of the Republican Party, will fight the hardest against.
This bill is HB 296, which requires state contractors and grant recipients to use the E-verify system. E-verify, as you may know, is an optional system that lets employers check social security numbers of employees against the federal database. Since many illegal aliens present fake documents to get jobs (and many employers are happy to play along, and are prohibited from investigating even if they smell something fishy due to oppressive “civil rights” laws), E-verify removes the jobs magnet for many illegals, who are usually incapable of anything more sophisticated than the petty fraud of forged documents, which E-verify effectively curtails.
As Roy Beck with NumbersUSA has stated many times, the Left likes to make immigration into a false choice: either we round up and deport people in an inhumane way, or we have to grant amnesty. The simplest solution is to remove the jobs magnet with a system like E-verify and people will self-deport. For example, it’s a lot cheaper to be unemployed in a foreign country like Mexico than in Texas. Then, these foreign governments will have to deal with their own social problems instead of pushing them onto American taxpayers.
There’s also a moral side to this issue. The law of supply and demand determines who gets rewarded in a free market system. For example, the main inputs into the production of aluminum are bauxite and electricity. It makes sense that if, for example, energy prices are really high (indicating high demand), that electricity producers would make more profit during those times.
Many so-called Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to the price of labor. Whenever wages go up because of high demand from employers, the first response of the cheap labor traitors is to demand increased immigration levels to suppress rising wages. As a result, we have gone in a generation from a country where a high school graduate could support an entire family to a country where the average person can barely make it on the market wage unless they reduce themselves to a Third World standard of living. When the cheap labor traitors can’t get wages beat down enough through legal means, they have used their political influence to stop enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws so that they can hire illegal labor at even lower wages.
We see this kind of corruption- the use of government policy to manipulate the labor market- up and down the economic ladder. America’s richest man, Bill Gates, has the audacity to ask Congress for more H-1b visas so Microsoft can have an army of indentured servants programming for $30,000 a year instead of employing Americans at the market wage. At the other end we see the massive fraud and criminality of the meat processing industry, which used to be a place where average Americans could earn a decent wage doing an unpleasant job.
Cheap Labor Lobby companies like the Tyson Corporation make billions of additional profits by lowering their direct labor costs at the expense of American workers and jobs, while simultaneously pushing untold billions of additional social spending onto American taxpayers for the health care and education required by law to be provided to illegal aliens.
On a related note, I think we would all prefer our computers to run more reliably if more software companies like Microsoft would invest in talented American programmers instead of Third World coding sweatshops.
A friend of mine from college told me the story of his father, who used to make six figures programming mainframes. He was laid off right before retirement and looked for a similar job (even at reduced pay) for over two years; he now works in the electronics section of the local Wal-mart. You see, technology companies don’t want to hire a 50-something family man when they can get an Indian programmer on an H-1b visa to work 60 hour weeks, under threat of deportation, for $15 an hour.
I’m sure many of you could tell me similar stories. There is a real human cost to the cheap labor traitors’ corrupting our government to distort the free market. We are denying our own domestic wage earners their God-given right to be paid the market wage in times of high demand.
Under our republican form of government, we are all essentially members of a covenant to respect each other’s property rights, even in situations where it does us personal harm. I have no right, for example, to demand that the electric company charge me less than market price, even if my personal situation is desperate and I cannot afford to pay. When we import Third World labor, we are bringing people into this country whose culture does not share our respect for free markets and property rights. If they did, first of all they wouldn’t violate our nation’s property rights by illegally entering and trespassing. Secondly, their home countries would not be such a mess, a long history of bloody demagogues and continual revolutions with each new leader as corrupt as the last. People generally get the government they deserve, as the old saying goes.
Thus, for short term profits, the cheap labor traitors ruin the long-term prospects of freedom, the very system that enabled them to generate their wealth. That’s why Democrats are so smug in this state, despite their recent electoral punishment. They know that, in the long run, demographics largely driven by illegal immigration make it inevitable that Texas will turn blue like California. It will take longer than they expect, but it will eventually happen unless something is done to reverse these ominous trends.
Once this happens, you can forget about a conservative President. You can forget about the Supreme Court, a primary reason so many of us hold our nose in Presidential elections and vote for the lesser of two evils. The game will be over if Texas falls; between New York, California and Texas the Democrats will have a lock on the Presidency. Our national government will then be under total occupation by Barack Obamas, Sonia Sotomayors and Ruth Bader Ginsburgs. The tattered remains of our much-abused but still-alive Constitution will finally be discarded by a permanent revolution of the Left.
Mandating E-Verify in Texas is a positive first step to counter these trends. The Cheap Labor Lobby will fight it tooth and nail, because it cuts to the heart of their criminal profits.
Take Action:
Please call Rep. Byron Cook at 512-463-0730 and demand he schedule a hearing in March for HB 296, which mandates use of the E-Verify system for many employers.
You can also send a fax here:
http://www.morrisonreport.com/fax_test/index.php?faxID=98
The Peter Morrison Report
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreport
There are several new illegal immigration bills submitted by Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle and other conservatives that deserve our attention and support.
If the federal government continues to turn a blind eye to the issue, and they give every indication that they will do just that, it is left to the states to deal with. Rep. Riddle and her conservative colleagues have made the first steps, but we must encourage the entire body of lawmakers to finish the job.
One bill would require employers to verify the legal immigration status of their employees.
Another pair, HB22 would require schools to request the immigration status of each student enrolled in a Texas public school, and HB21 would require state agencies (including school districts) to calculate the cost of services to persons here illegally.
Find your Texas State Representatives and urge them to support these bills.
Peter Morrison has written an article concerning HB22 and one of it’s detractors:
The Peter Morrison Report:
Texans Deserve to Know the True Cost of Illegal Immigration
Summary of this week’s report:
Texans sent a message last November when we went to the polls, and it was loud and clear: we want real conservatives who will take a strong stand on the issues we care about. One of our biggest concerns is illegal immigration, which is overwhelming our state. Unfortunately it seems that Rep. Rob Eissler, chairman of the House Public Education Committee, has already turned his back on our concerns. He is opposed to a bill that would require public schools to check the immigration status of their students. This is not what we voted for in November. Please send a free fax to let Rob Eissler know we’re not going to put up with it.
http://www.morrisonreport.com/fax_test/index.php?faxID=97
Full report:
Last November, voters went to the polls across Texas and America and sent an unmistakable message: we’ve had enough of “me too” Republicans, and we want leaders who will do more than just mouth platitudes that sound good. We want Republicans who will fight for conservative causes and principles, instead of caving in and kowtowing to liberals at the first sign of opposition. Some of our senators and representatives in Austin have let us know that they received the message loud and clear, and they’re going to work hard on behalf of the issues we care about, and there are indications that this session won’t just be business as usual. Unfortunately, others seem to have completely forgotten the conservative revolution of last November.
Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Houston) has proposed a bill that would require all public schools to check the immigration status of all their students. This is a very sensible first step toward getting a handle on the huge illegal immigration problem in Texas. As it stands now, there are no reliable figures as to just how widespread the problem is. If Debbie Riddle’s bill becomes law, at least we would finally be able to measure just how much it costs us every year to educate the children of illegals in our public schools. This is exactly the sort of leadership conservative Texans demanded
last November.Unfortunately it seems that not all the Republicans in Austin got the message. One of them, Rep. Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands) is Chairman of the House Public Education Committee. Recently he gave an interview to the Texas Tribune in which he was asked about Rep. Riddle’s bill. His response to the question should anger every conservative in Texas. At first he tried to avoid answering the question. Then, not only did he say he opposes the bill, calling it a mandate, he did so in a very condescending and offensive manner. He gave the distinct impression that he wants nothing to do with those of us who are concerned about illegal immigration, and won’t be doing anything to stop it.
Rep. Eissler pointed out that under Supreme Court rulings, public schools in America have no choice but to educate the children of illegals. Under current law, that is true, but Eissler is misconstruing the point of the bill. There is nothing in it which would order or allow schools to refuse admittance to the children of illegal aliens. It would simply require them to verify citizenship status, just as they already tabulate many other statistics, such as how many children are below the poverty line, what race children are, etc. Collecting one more bit of information would hardly constitute a burden on public schools.
It seems likely that there is more to Eissler’s opposition than the fact that this bill would be an inexpensive mandate. Not only does he appear to be opposed to efforts to rein in illegal immigration, he also appears to want to use the very fact that schools are being swamped by illegals as an excuse to raise spending on public education. In January 2010, a Houston Chronicle article discussed the fact that around 60% of students in Texas public schools are considered “disadvantaged”, because they come from a low income family, or they don’t speak English well, or both. Obviously, this problem has been made much worse by illegal immigrants, many of whose children fall into one or both categories. The Chronicle quoted Eissler, who said the answer is spending more tax dollars to hire teachers with “more qualifications” in our public schools: “You have more and more kids that are less prepared to do well in
school. Where the expense comes in, you need teachers that have more qualifications. Maybe we need more and better professional development for our teachers.” It’s hard to understand “teachers that have more qualifications” in this context as anything other than “bilingual” teachers. Eissler admitted that his idea would mean spending more money on public schools, which would also, quite conveniently, give him even more power as Chairman of the House
Public Education Committee.Rob Eissler’s opposition to the Riddle bill is an outrage, and we cannot allow it to pass unopposed. For far too long we’ve put up with being betrayed by RINOs and phony conservatives, and it has to stop. Liberals don’t betray their base and start voting along conservative lines when they win office. No, leftists are playing to win, and they unashamedly represent the people who put them in power. Just this past week, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who famously said that she thinks a “wise Latina” would make a better judge than a white male, spoke to a group of students at the University of Chicago law school, and she made it clear she’s strongly committed to racial quotas and other preferences. She knows who made her what she is today, and she intends to use her power to advance their agenda. Meanwhile, on our side, we’re regularly betrayed by RINO after RINO.
Conservative Texans want leaders who will fight for what we believe in, while there’s still time to make a difference. California is probably past the point of no return when it comes to being destroyed by illegal immigration, but Texas isn’t that far behind. We must act now, or we will face the same fate that California now faces, a future as a third world state. We can’t let that happen here. We need to inundate Rep. Eissler’s office with faxes and phone calls and insist that he support Debbie Riddle’s bill. We need to let him know that we’re fed up with being betrayed by the leadership in Austin when it comes to illegal immigration. He needs to decide whose team he’s on. If he’s on our team, then he’d
better start acting like it. If he’s not, and he’d rather win praise from Democrats and the media for being “open minded” and “tolerant,” then we’ll solve the problem once and for all in the 2012 primaries.Take action:
Call or fax Rep. Rob Eissler and insist that he start voting like a conservative when it comes to illegal immigration, beginning with Rep. Riddle’s bill to require public schools to verify the immigration status of all students. Tell him he needs to start opposing illegal immigration, or we’ll find someone who will in 2012.
Main: (512) 463-0797
Fax: (512) 463-0898Click the link below to send Rep. Eissler a fax for free:
http://www.morrisonreport.com/fax_test/index.php?faxID=97
The Peter Morrison Report
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreportSources:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6795211.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704709304576124502622737210.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Every now and then, I post a newsletter in its entirety. This edition of The Peter Morrison Report is especially important because of the upcoming vote on Texas Speaker of the House. The Democrats once again are attempting to influence Republicans in their choice for Speaker and you can do something to help stop them.
The Peter Morrison Report
Summary of this week’s report:
The vote for Speaker of the Texas House is a battle for the heart and soul of the Texas GOP. Supporters of Joe Straus know how important this vote is, and in the past few weeks they’ve been pulling out all the stops in order to slander traditional conservatives who want a change in leadership. This time, though, they’ve reached an all time low: we’re now being told it’s “racist” to bar Democrats from Republican caucus meetings.
Scroll to the bottom to see details on what you can do to influence this critical vote.
Full report:
A new session of the Texas Legislature is about to convene, and the first order of business will be electing a Speaker of the House. This ballot will be the single most important vote House members will cast during the entire session, as the Speaker has tremendous power to set the agenda, appoint committee chairmen, kill bills, etc. During last session, which was divided almost equally between Republicans and Democrats, RINO Joe Straus was Speaker. Straus used the power of his office to thwart conservative goals and paid off the liberal Democrats who voted for him by not rocking the boat. He even helped some of them campaign for re-election against conservative Republicans this past November.
This is totally unacceptable, and there’s no reason Straus should be elected Speaker in this session, because Republicans now enjoy a super-majority in the House. Voters went to the polls all over Texas in November, and we made our voices clear: we want a truly conservative legislature which will work hard to enact a real conservative agenda. We’ve had enough of “me too Republicans” in the House whose main career goals seem to be making friends with Democrats.
Naturally, Joe Straus and his cronies are insisting that they heard us loud and clear, and this session will be different, and Straus will fight for a conservative agenda. Conservatives aren’t buying this line, thankfully. If a man won’t stand for conservative principles when the going is tough, there’s no reason to believe he’ll do so when the wind is at his back. We’ve seen enough of Joe Straus over the years to know exactly where he stands on the issues. He made that crystal clear during the last session, and he’s not the conservative leader Texas conservatives need. All across the state local conservative groups are demanding that Straus be replaced as Speaker.
Party leaders are aware of this, and have scheduled a caucus meeting before the actual start of the session to settle on one GOP candidate for Speaker. The plan is to meet in private and pick a candidate everyone agrees on, rather than fight internal party battles in a public forum. This is nothing out of the ordinary; political parties do this sort of thing all the time. In fact, this is exactly why we have primaries, so the parties can agree on one candidate for the general election, instead of a half dozen people from each party vying for office.
Amazingly, though, one Democrat is denouncing the planned caucus as “racist” – because Democrats aren’t invited! Rep. Joseph Deshotel (D-Port Arthur) has written an open letter making the ludicrous claim that this meeting violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because most of the Democratic representatives in the Texas House are minorities, while most of the Republican legislators are white. Here’s a brief excerpt from his letter:
“The forty-nine (49) Democratic legislators not being allowed to participate in what is tantamount to the election of the Speaker consist of forty-two minorities; fifteen (15) African Americans, twenty-five (25) Hispanics and one (1) Asian. Should the Republican Caucus Bylaws be followed an additional two African-Americans and four Hispanic Republican Elect members and one Hispanic former Democrat would be denied a vote as well. These forty-nine minority House Members and the eight millions Texans they represent are being disenfranchised from the Speaker’s election.”
These days we’re seeing more and more outrageous claims of “racism”, but this one really takes the cake. First of all, the Voting Rights Act is a nearly 50 year old law that unconstitutionally discriminates against southern states. It’s a racist law that presumes black people can only be represented by black people, and that white voters in southern states are wicked racists who are always out to deny black people their right to vote.
Second, the Voting Rights Act doesn’t even apply to this caucus, which isn’t an election at all. It’s a private meeting for Republican legislators to discuss internal party affairs. There is still going to be a vote in the House for Speaker; the idea that this meeting will somehow invalidate the votes of minority legislators when they cast their votes for Speaker is completely ridiculous. No one takes this argument seriously; Rep. Deshotel has embarrassed himself and his cause by writing this letter. Crying “racism” when you don’t get your way is rapidly losing its force in America.However, this letter does further demonstrate why Joe Straus is unfit to hold the office of the Speaker of the House. That’s because Rep. Deshotel has pledged his vote to Straus. How can conservatives support a candidate who’s acceptable to a liberal left wing Democrat like Joseph Deshotel, who stoops to accusing Republicans of being racists for not allowing Democrats to have a say in their internal party affairs? We already knew that Joe Straus was too liberal, but this disgraceful episode reveals just what kind of company he keeps. Joe Straus has got to go. We deserve a true conservative as Speaker of the House, not one who counts men like Joseph Deshotel among his supporters.
Sources:
http://www.redstate.com/hogan/2011/01/06/the-establishment-vs-the-people-texas-style/
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/01/eagle-forum-calls-speaker-vote.html
http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=39786
Take Action:Contact Your Legislator and Demand They Vote for Rep. Ken Paxton or Rep. Warren Chisum for Speaker. Find your state representative here: Â http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/
The following list is from Donna Garner, and those highlighted in red have pledged to NOT vote for Straus. All others desperately need pressure:
Name Party Capitol Phone Aliseda, Jose R (512) 463-0645 Anderson, Charles R (512) 463-0135 Anderson, Rodney R (512) 463-0694 Aycock, Jimmie Don R (512) 463-0684 Beck, Marva R (512) 463-0508 Berman, Leo R (512) 463-0584 Bohac, Dwayne R (512) 463-0727 Bonnen, Dennis R (512) 463-0564 Branch, Dan R (512) 463-0367 Brown, Fred R (512) 463-0698 Burkett, Cindy R (512) 463-0464 Button, Angie Chen R (512) 463-0486 Cain, Erwin R (512) 463-0650 Callegari, William R (512) 463-0528 Carter, Stefani R (512) 463-0454 Chisum, Warren R (512) 463-0736 Christian, Wayne R (512) 463-0556 Cook, Byron R (512) 463-0730 Craddick, Tom R (512) 463-0500 Creighton, Brandon R (512) 463-0726 Crownover, Myra R (512) 463-0582 Darby, Drew R (512) 463-0331 Davis, John E. R (512) 463-0734 Davis, Sarah R (512) 463-0389 Driver, Joe R (512) 463-0574 Eissler, Rob R (512) 463-0797 Elkins, Gary R (512) 463-0722 Fletcher, Allen R (512) 463-0661 Flynn, Dan R (512) 463-0880 Frullo, John M. R (512) 463-0676 Garza, John V. R (512) 463-0269 Geren, Charlie R (512) 463-0610 Gonzales, Larry R (512) 463-0670 Gooden, Lance R (512) 463-0458 Hamilton, Mike R (512) 463-0412 Hancock, Kelly R (512) 463-0599 Hardcastle, Rick R (512) 463-0526 Harless, Patricia R (512) 463-0496 Harper-Brown, Linda R (512) 463-0641 Hartnett, Will R (512) 463-0576 Hilderbran, Harvey R (512) 463-0536 Hopson, Chuck R (512) 463-0592 Howard, Charlie R (512) 463-0710 Huberty, Dan R (512) 463-0520 Hughes, Bryan R (512) 463-0271 Hunter, Todd A. R (512) 463-0672 Isaac, Jason R (512) 463-0647 Jackson, Jim R (512) 463-0468 Keffer, Jim R (512) 463-0656 King, Phil R (512) 463-0738 King, Susan R (512) 463-0718 Kleinschmidt, Tim R (512) 463-0682 Kolkhorst, Lois W. R (512) 463-0600 Kuempel, John Langston R (512) 463-0602 Landtroop, Jim R (512) 463-0604 Larson, Lyle R (512) 463-0646 Laubenberg, Jodie R (512) 463-0186 Lavender, George R (512) 463-0692 Legler, Ken R (512) 463-0460 Lewis, Tryon D. R (512) 463-0546 Lyne, Lanham R (512) 463-0534 Madden, Jerry R (512) 463-0544 Margo, Dee R (512) 463-0728 Miller, Doug R (512) 463-0325 Miller, Sid R (512) 463-0628 Morrison, Geanie R (512) 463-0456 Murphy, Jim R (512) 463-0514 Nash, Barbara R (512) 463-0562 Orr, Rob R (512) 463-0538 Otto, John R (512) 463-0570 Parker, Tan R (512) 463-0688 Patrick, Diane R (512) 463-0624 Paxton, Ken R (512) 463-0356 Pe?a, Aaron R (512) 463-0426 Perry, Charles R (512) 463-0542 Phillips, Larry R (512) 463-0297 Pitts, Jim R (512) 463-0516 Price, Four R (512) 463-0470 Riddle, Debbie R (512) 463-0572 Ritter, Allan R (512) 463-0706 Schwertner, Charles J. R (512) 463-0309 Scott, Connie R (512) 463-0462 Sheets, Kenneth R (512) 463-0244 Sheffield, Ralph R (512) 463-0630 Shelton, Mark R (512) 463-0608 Simpson, David R (512) 463-0750 Smith, Todd R (512) 463-0522 Smith, Wayne R (512) 463-0733 Smithee, John R (512) 463-0702 Solomons, Burt R (512) 463-0478 Straus, Joe R (512) 463-1000 Taylor, Larry R (512) 463-0729 Taylor, Van R (512) 463-0594 Torres, Raul R (512) 463-0484 Truitt, Vicki R (512) 463-0690 Weber, Randy R (512) 463-0707 White, James R (512) 463-0490 Woolley, Beverly R Also, there will be a rally in Austin to help remind our hapless spineless Republican leaders that the Tea Party is watching and waiting for them to do the right thing. The more people who can attend, the better. Information below, also from Donna Garner:
If you support conservative House leadership, we ask you to JOIN US in Austin on January 10th and 11th to send a message to the Republican members of the Texas House,
Ladies and gentlemen, we all worked too hard last year to stand by and watch self-described conservatives negotiate a surrender to the other side after we’ve already won the battle.
And yet, if we don’t show up in Austin next week, that is exactly what could happen.
Republicans and independent conservatives from across the State of Texas will be coming together next week in Austin to let the members of the Texas House know that the people of Texas demand conservative House leadership.
Details are posted here: http://GrassrootsTexans.org/ events/
The Peter Morrison Report
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreport
If you are a Texan and haven’t signed up to receive your free copy of the Peter Morrison Report, I urge you to do so. ~’bot
I missed the Peter Morrison Report in my inbox Friday.That’s OK though, it’s not too late, because there are still some excellent points Peter asks us to remember as we go to the polls tomorrow. You are going to vote tomorrow, aren’t you?
In case you’re not acquainted with Mr. Morrison, he writes a newsletter concerning National, Texas State and southeast Texas issues from a conservative / libertarian perspective. If you haven’t signed up for his newsletter, I highly recommend it.
Here is The Peter Morrison Report:
Will 2010 Elections Be a Repeat of 1994?â€
Election Day is fast approaching, and if the long lines for early
voting here in my hometown of Lumberton are any indication, big
changes are coming. It appears that the Republican party is almost
certainly going to win back control of the US House of
Representatives. There is even a slight possibility that they will
also win control of the Senate (although that is less likely). You
don’t have to be a prophet to see that this election is going to be
a major setback for Barack Obama and the Democrats. All the polls
point to major gains for the GOP. Republicans need to take at
least 39 seats currently held by Democrats to become the House
majority party. Five Thirty Eight, the website which was amazingly
accurate in its predictions for the 2008 elections, is currently
projecting that the GOP will pick up 61 seats.Some pollsters are projecting lower numbers, but still enough to
control the House, while others are saying that the GOP could even
pick up 70 seats. Peter Hart, a well known Democratic pollster,
stated bluntly: “It’s hard to say that the Democrats are facing
anything less that a Category 4 hurricane.”Of course, anything can happen between now and November 2nd, but
barring some sort of shocking development, it seems pretty clear
that the anger and energy we’ve seen expressed over the past couple
of years at town hall meetings and Tea Party rallies is still going
strong, and Democrats are going to be held accountable at the
ballot box for signing on to Obama’s radical leftist agenda. This
is certainly good news, and it shows what conservatives can
accomplish when we work hard and refuse to give up the fight.However, if we’re not careful, a massive GOP victory could actually
be a setback in the long run. Many conservatives will be lulled
into a false sense of complacency if the GOP takes control of one
or both houses of Congress. Far too many people are locked into a
“Democrats bad, Republicans good” worldview; they assume that with
Republicans in place to oppose Obama, there’s nothing to worry
about. This attitude is widespread, and it has been one of the
main reasons conservatives have seen our agenda remain unfulfilled.In 1994 a very similar realignment occurred. Voter anger at Bill
and Hillary’s left wing activism–NAFTA, ordering the military to
stop discharging homosexuals, and attempting to socialize health
care (not to mention the Waco massacre)–led to the so called
Republican Revolution, when the GOP took control of the House and
Senate for the first time in 40 years. For all the talk of
revolution, very little came of it. Which should have been no
surprise as the first thing the GOP majorities did was elect Newt
Gingrich Speaker of the House, and Bob Dole Senate Majority Leader.
Gingrich, for all his conservative bluster, has always been most
interested in advancing his own career, not pursuing an authentic
conservative agenda. Bob Dole was a McCain style Republican, a
“moderate” who prided himself on being able to compromise with the
Democrats.Both Gingrich and Dole (and most other Congressional Republicans)
had helped Bill Clinton pass the disastrous NAFTA “free trade”
agreement prior to the 1994 election. After the “revolution”, they
then helped Clinton secure Congress’s approval of GATT/WTO.
Together these trade treaties have nearly wiped out America’s
manufacturing base, and led to increasing economic dependency on
Communist China. In spite of all these betrayals (and many more),
conservatives became complacent after the 1994 election, simply
because they assumed that with Republicans in charge, everything
would be fine.Nothing could be further from the truth, and by now it should be
crystal clear that the words “Republican” and “conservative” don’t
have the same meanings, and that the problem isn’t just limited to
Gingrich and Dole. Look at how George Bush treated us. He teamed
up with Ted Kennedy to give us No Child Left Behind, the expensive
folly that won’t do a thing to close the achievement gap, but will
fill decent public schools with bad students after their own
schools have been shut down by NCLB. He pushed banks to lower
lending standards for minorities, leading directly to the mortgage
crisis. He bailed out Wall Street to the tune of 700 billion
dollars. In 2004 he mobilized Christians and conservatives to
rally to the polls to re-elect him by talking tough on gay
marriage, but after he won re-election he never mentioned the
subject again. He and the GOP Congress gave us the prescription
drug bill, which is projected to cost America trillions in the
future. They also did nothing as millions of illegal aliens poured
into America under Bush’s watch.