What happens when Republicans don’t show up for work?

This.

We had to know something like this would happen when that jerk Carter got elected

Because of Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt’s dogged persistence, the city is forming a task force to look into all the harmful effects caused by gas drilling in metropolitan areas. Turns out, it may all be for nothing and it’s because of that Stefani Carter nutcase I knew would run amok once she entered into the Texas Legislature.

Carter is one of the Texas Party idiots who was swept into office in the last election not by running on state issues but by campaigning against a black President, which will get you a lot of traction in racist Lake Highlands, especially of you are a black candidate. (If you’re not familiar with Lake Highlands, it is the community that is trying to drive out all black residents by demolishing the apartments in which they live and replacing them either with another Wal-Mart minus all the beautiful trees that used to be there, as is the case at Skillman and Northwest Highway; or with a replica of the lunar landscape, which is what Skillman and Walnut Hill has become.)

Now Carter is pushing House Bill 1305 through the Texas Legislature. This bill, drafted by another Lake Highlands representative, Bill Keffer,  would take away a city’s right to regulate oil and gas drilling. You think this might have something to do with the fact that Carter was purchased by the oil and gas industry?

Raymond Crawford, the local activist who has been pushing for a moratorium on drilling in the Dallas city limits has send a letter to state Sen. Royce West, seeking his help in derailing the legislation. Stand by.

Republicans fiddle while Texas burns

• 1.8 million acres of Texas land has burned so far this year guaranteeing it will be the worst year for wildfires in Texas in recorded history.
• Already this year, local firefighters have saved more than 10,000 structures from being burned.
• Texas has 879 volunteer fire departments, but only 114 paid fire departments and 187 that are a combination of both.
• Texas Republicans have voted to cut funding to volunteer fire departments by more than 75 percent, from $30 million to $7 million.

Teas Legislature's latest invasion on women's rights

Bethany Anderson of D magazine raises some interesting points about the sonogram bill currently being considered by our 19th-century-thinking Texas Legislature.

But her post is nothing compared to what Katherine Haenschen writes about this highly invasive procedure. What the Lege is discussing is not the "jelly on the belly" procedure, but a wand that's rammed up into a woman's body (see illustration). Just imagine: A woman who gets impregnated by a rapist gets to be violated a second time, courtesy of the Republicans in the Texas Legislature.

This is simply wrong, wrong, wrong!

Why do we continue to elect these idiots?

While most legal experts are predicting that Arizona's recently passed immigration law undoubtedly will not survive a legal appeal, we have a legislator right here in Texas saying that she wants to introduce an identical piece of legislation during the next legislative session which opens in January. Need I say, the woman is a Republican, however I doubt her fellow Republicans will be willing to sacrifice any hope of winning Hispanic votes by coming out in favor of such a measure. Even Gov. Hair is remaining mum on the topic, which should tell you something.

The cost of no leadership in state government

Houston Chronicle Austin reporter R.G. Ratcliffe says it will cost taxpayers $30,408 a day for a special legislative session that would not have been necessary with adequate leadership at the state level.

The 140-day regular session of the legislature, which Ratcliffe says cost taxpayers $9.1 million, ended June 1 without passing bills to keep alive such agencies as the Texas Department of Transportation, Department of Insurance, Office of Public Insurance Counsel, the Texas Racing Commission or the State Affordable Housing Corporation. Why did the legislature do this? Because the Texas Senate was peeved that the House refused to consider its voter suppression legislation, it adjourned without even considering the House-passed bills that were on the table to keep those departments functioning. That's how petty our state government has become. If we had any kind of leadership in the governor's office, this would not have happened.

But then this lack of leadership is nothing new. Gov Hair became our chief executive on Dec. 21, 2000, when Gov. George Bush officially resigned to prepare to assume the Presidency. Since then, we have had seven -- count 'em, seven -- special legislative sessions: three in 2005 to deal with educational financing, three in 2003 because of redistricting issues and one in 2004, also to deal with redistricting. Now, we are about to have an eighth (and Hair's right-wing cronies are pressing him to add voter suppression to the agenda, which will cost taxpayers far more money than a probable three-day mini-session just to deal with the expiring departments.) That's an average of two special sessions for every one regular session.

A quick look at the just completed legislative session

Failures:

• A bill that would have provided health insurance to 80,000 Texas children died because of political gamesmanship.
• No action was taken to lower utility rates.
• Texas homeowners pay the highest insurance premiums in the country and nothing was done to change that fact.
• The failure to kill the Trans Texas Corridor.
• The failure to place caps on skyrocketing tuitions at Texas universities, a failure that particularly hurts middle income families.
• The refusal to accept $500 million in federal dollars to help unemployed Texans. Now that money must be raised by raising taxes on Texas businesses. Everyone loses in this scenario.

Successes:

• Federal stimulus funds allowed the Lege to craft a pass a budget that did not cut state services and, in the words of many legislators, contained "a little something for everyone."
• Voter ID, a bill that would have disenfranchised thousands of Texans, died.
• With the help of a major lobbying effort by college students who opposed the measure, a bill allowing the carrying of handguns on college campuses never even made it to the House floor for a vote.
• With the help of federal stimulus funds, the Lege passed decent school finance legislation that guaranteed teachers a minimum $800 pay hike.

Once again Texas lawmakers prove they don't have a clue

I used to have this annual ritual that began every September. Each day for two months I would check the British Airways Web site to see what specials they were having. I remember one year, I found a three-day sale in which roundtrip tickets from DFW to London were $99 each. That was cheaper than flying from here to Austin. Of course, you had to travel between Nov. 1 and March 31, not the height of the tourist season in Great Britain, but for $99 who cares.

Another time I found a package deal on the BA Web site -- one week in London and one week in Paris for $600 a person. That price included all air fares and hotel costs. My son and I spent our first week in London and just as we were ready to check out of the hotel and take the train out to Heathrow, British Airways called to inform us that firemen were on strike in Paris (some outfit is always on strike in France.) Since firemen had to be on duty at the airport, that presented a problem. The airline said there were a number of possibilities -- our flight could takeoff and land as scheduled, it could be delayed or it could be cancelled. The caller gave us two options: (1) We could head to Heathrow and take our chances or (2) our tickets would be honored on Eurostar, the high-speed rail from London to Paris. I immediately chose option No. 2.

A couple of years earlier I had taken that same rail the other way, from Paris to London and I knew the benefits. The actual trip -- from hotel to hotel -- took much less time by rail than it did by air, mainly because of the time saved traveling from downtown to the far-flung airports in both cities. Plus, on the train, it was much easier to get out of your seat and walk around and, of course, the scenes out the window were far superior.

On the French side of the channel, the train reached speeds of almost 200 miles an hour. A couple of days after arriving in Paris, my son and I were standing on line waiting to get into the Louvre and we struck up a conversation with a French couple from Calais. They had driven to Paris and told us that they were driving close to 100 miles an hour on the main motorway when the Eurostar sped past them "as though we were standing still." (The picture above left shows the Eurostar arriving in the London station.)

I mention all this because, unless you have spent time enjoying rail travel, perhaps it's difficult to realize all the benefits it can bring. And perhaps it's because the dunces in the Texas Legislature have never enjoyed riding in anything but a Ford pickup, they are acting like idiots while discussing transportation options for the state, options they are making sure don't include rail.

While a group of farsighted North Central Texans (a phrase I once considered an oxymoron), tried to fashion legislation (albeit terribly misguided legislation) that would have funded about 200 miles of additional rail lines in the area, the Texas Legislature has decided that 25 percent of the money raised by this plan must go to schools and the other 75 percent can only be spent on highways and bridges.

This entire mess reminds me of the campaign used to convince Dallas-area voters to approve a .5 cent sales tax hike to fund the construction of rail in Dallas, what we now know as DART. The campaign was based on the notion that approval of this sales tax would decrease highway congestion in the area. Even then I thought that was the wrong argument and today we see traffic problems are worse than they were when this sales tax proposal was suggested.

But the real reason I thought that was a stupid argument was because of the "why." Why would someone be so interested in reducing traffic congestion. The only answer possible was so it would make it easier for that person to drive around town. In other words, they weren't going to be pried from their pickup truck. It's that same 200-years-behind-the-times attitude that still exists in this state.

It will still take elections to pass what the Legislature is considering -- a 10-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax increase to fund all this highway construction. I will do whatever I can (which is probably not all that much) to defeat such a proposal since I have gone on record many times as opposing any transportation option that does not include a rail component.

I must also add that I am crushed by the white-flag waving comments made by people like Rowlett Mayor John Harper who was quoted as saying "I suppose 'half a loaf' is better than none." (No, it isn't, John) and Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, who said his staff would waste little time crying over the lost opportunity for rail -- they'd quickly follow with a list of road projects that counties could place before voters as soon as 2010.

That's the kind of cowardly leadership that will forever condemn Texas to remain 100 years behind the times.

The ignorance of State Rep. Betty Brown and those who think like her

My ex-wife gave her first-born son (from a marriage before ours) a rather unwieldy name, but one that she was very proud off because it was highly unusual and it contained an umlaut and other phonetic aides. He hated it and as soon as he was old enough to do so he changed it to something more comfortable. I remember my ex-wife being initially disturbed about this (I never heard how her first husband, who carried the family name that was being wiped out, felt) and in a telephone conversation I had with her about it I tried to explain that a name is the most personal possession its bearer owns. I think she thought a lot about this in the ensuing days after our conversation and she not only came around to agree with me, but she announced she was changing her first name to reflect her interest in Spanish cultures.

I mention all this only because it goes to say how incensed I was at the remarks made by state Rep. Betty Brown during Wednesday's testimony in the House Committee Elections on the Voter ID bill. Her remarks, her incredible insensitivity, sum up all the reasons I oppose this discriminatory legislation. I waited a couple of days to reflect on this because I wanted my anger to subside so that I might see if any good could come from it. And perhaps some good has: Her remarks have attracted nationwide attention, has unmasked the Voter ID bill and those who support it for what it is and who they are and may be the very thing that derails this legislation.

For those who don't know what I am talking about, let me try to re-create the scene. Rep. Brown asked a man of Asian ancestry, who was testifying against the bill, to disown his family name so it would be easier for ignorant people like Rep. Brown to deal with. Specifically, she told Mr. Ramey Ko:

Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese - I understand it's a rather difficult language - do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?

Those are her exact words. Like I said earlier "a name is the most personal possession its bearer owns." It's that person's life story, his or her heritage. To ask someone to just give it up because it was make it easier on some ego-centric elected official or anyone else, for that matter, is unconscionable. And above all, it should not be used as an excuse to deny someone the right to vote.

But this is the type of thinking that's going into the Voter ID bill.

Fees that could be used to fund Corona's transportation bill

A day or so ago, I editorialized about Sen John Corona's bill that would allow Dallas County Commissioners to impose taxes that would be used to fund transportation projects in the area. I said that the bill would allow the commissioners to raise the sales tax. That was incorrect. I have finally secured a copy of the proposal and it appears these are the fees the country can play with:

• A tax on the sale of gasoline not to exceed 10 cents a gallon but which would be adjusted annually according to inflation.
• A "mobility improvement fee, in an amount not to exceed $60" that would be "imposed on each person registering a motor vehicle in the county other than a person who initially registers a vehicle after acquiring the vehicle." (Huh?)
• A $1-an-hour tax charged for using public parking places.
• An annual motor emissions fee based upon the amount of pollutants your car ads to the Dallas air. The maximum tax here would be $15 a year. I'm guessing that would be added to the cost of your annual auto inspection.
• Doubling the fee for renewing your driver's license with the added charge going into the transportation fund.
• A maximum $250 "new resident roadway impact fee ... imposed on each person registering a motor vehicle previously registered in another state or country and collected at the time of registration."

Incidentally, the commissioners don't have to pick just one of the above options. They could impose as many of them as they think would be needed to get the job done each time they approved a new transportation project.

I still don't like this plan, even if sales taxes are not involved. My opposition, as stated earlier, is based upon my belief that:

• Rail transportation, especially high speed rail transportation, which is desperately needed, is a regional, even a statewide issue, and shouldn't be approached on a county-by-county basis.
• To impose these fees would require two votes: The first a statewide vote just to approve the concept and then local county-by-county votes every time the commissioners decided they wanted to fund another project. Frankly, in these economic times, I don't think highway loving Texans are going to vote to raise their own taxes for projects designed to pry them out of their pickups.
• I still think someone should more carefully analyze where the money we currently pay in federal and state gasoline taxes is going and to report why those funds can't be used to fund these projects.

Carona's local option transportation bill does not seem like a good option

I learned from reading the Transportation blog written by Michael Lindenberger of the Dallas Morning News that the Texas Senate has passed Dallas Sen. John Carona's transportation bill, one that would allow counties to raise taxes and fees to fund transportation projects.

"But despite the win," Lindenberger writes, "prospects for the bill look cloudy."

Whew! For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.

Look, I realize this city, this region ... hell, the entire state ... needs new transportation alternatives and by that I don't any more of Gov. Perry's toll roads that are designed only to line the pockets of his influential Spanish cohorts. In fact, we don't need more roads at all -- we should, in fact, be trying to find ways to force gas-guzzling, impediment-spewing vehicles off the roads that we do have.

Second, the last thing we need to do is to give our unaccountable county commissioners the power to raise our taxes because we all know how those tyrants will react -- "Let's add another half-percent to the sales tax." Let's just for a second put aside the fact that the sales tax is the most unfair tax ever levied on a public; instead look at the numbers. Sales tax revenue is plummeting. I've heard the City of Dallas' latest sales tax figures are even below its recently lowered expectations. So an increase in the regressive sales tax might fund a rail line from Highland Park to University Park, but that's about it.

I also don't think it's a good time to slap additional fees on auto registrations either, which is another likely avenue the commissioners might travel. I would take a look at an additional gasoline tax, but that brings me back to what really needs to happen.

We already pay a state and a federal tax on each gallon of gasoline we purchase at the pump. Does anyone really know where that money is going? Is the state tax going into a special transportation fund or just into the general tax pool? My fear is that the second option is the correct one. Wherever that money's going, it needs to be kept out of the hands of the Texas Department of Transportation because TxDOT is not a transportation agency, it is a highway department; it will only use the money to fund more road building and will use all of its considerable influence to make sure none of it is used for rail infrastructure.

Does anybody know (Eddie Bernice Johnson--Are you listening) what percentage of the federal gasoline taxes paid by Texans finds its way back to funding transportation needs in this state? How much of it comes back to Texas for any purpose? If it is less than 100 per cent, is anyone being held accountable for why?

I would like for Sen. Carona to investigate whether more careful management of the taxes we already pay might be a superior option to giving our county commissioners the power to raise additional taxes.

Not only that, transportation issues like the ones we're facing need to be addressed on a regional and even a statewide level, not a county one. What happens when Dallas County Commissioners vote to levy an additional tax for transportation needs and the commissioners of Collin and Tarrant counties reject the idea? This state desperately needs a high-speed triangular rail line linking Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, but that's never going to happen if every county through which such a line would be built needed to go to constituents asking them to approve a tax increase.

I think I know Corona's motives behind this legislation and I agree with them: We in this area simply can't afford to wait for the rest of the state to get off its duff when it comes to funding rail construction. We need to find a way to jumpstart the process. He's right. But I don't think giving each county the option to raise taxes is the correct way to go about it. Not in these times, at least.

A list of 20 Republicans who need to be voted out of office

The Texas House of Representatives passed legislation today that would make it easier for the men and women who have served our country in Iraq and Afghanistan to attend Texas public universities.

Here is an analysis of the legislation:

Currently, veterans who are not Texans but who want to attend a public college or university in Texas are required to pay out-of-state tuition and fees until they have lived in Texas for one year. Non-Texas veterans who may be interested in settling in Texas may be hesitant to attend college here because of the out-of-state tuition costs. Senate Bill 297 would deliver real support to veterans while helping strengthen Texas' economy by attracting and keeping talent in the state. Expanding in-state tuition benefits to military veterans and their spouses and children is a fitting way to recognize those who have served, led, and protected our country. SB 297 would allow veterans and their spouses and children to pay in-state tuition and fees without regard to the length of time they have resided in Texas.

The following 20 Republicans (a 13 percent minority), for some inexplicable reason, voted against this bill:

Fred Brown
Warren Chisum
Joe Crabb
Tom Craddick
Brandon Creighton
Gary Elkins
Dan Flynn
Kelly Hancock
Will Hartnett
Charlie Howard
Ken Legle
Debbie Riddle
Ralph Sheffield
Mark Shelton
John Smithee
David Swinford
Vicki Truitt
Randy Weber
Beverly Woolley
John Zerwas

Anti-environment Texas Legislature at it again

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse down in Austin comes word that tomorrow the House Committee on Environmental Regulation will hear testimony on HB 4012, which, among other things, would eliminate the contested-case hearing process, just about the only opportunity ordinary citizens who care about air quality have to challenge a power plant permit.

Two years ago Gov. Hair, who has never once been on the side of environmental quality, tried to protect coal plants from regulation but was overruled by the courts. Now the legislature is trying to achieve what the governor couldn't.

Rep. Lon Burnam of Fort Worth is one of the few true environmentalists in the Texas House of Representatives and he is a member of this committee. Give his Austin office a call (512-463-0740) and voice your opposition to HB 4012.

Doncha just love representative government? It's the best money can buy

Students across all college campuses in Texas oppose it. So do school faculties and staff. So do law enforcement officials

But the NRA is behind it and that makes it OK with our Texas Senate which is getting ready to pass legislation allowing students to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. Here's hoping House members display a little more common sense, not to mention being more representative of those that elected them.

The bill is being heard by the House Committee on Public Safety. Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway, the wife of Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwayne Caraway, is a member of that committee. It is somewhat ironic that Mr. Caraway, who led a courageous effort to get handguns out of the hands of youths in Dallas, now sees his wife considering legislation that would place guns back in their possessions. You can go here to send Ms. Caraway an e-mail, pleading with her to do everything in her power to stop this heinous legislation.