Credit: Talking Points Memo

The tea party has focused their policy message on the radical ideas of our founding fathers: that government should do only a few things and do them well; that progress is defined by more liberty, not higher taxes or bigger budgets; and that the power of government rests with the people, not the politicians or bureaucrats.

It was assumed (hoped?) by the ruling-class establishmentarians that the tea party would go away once the signs waved at rallies got too heavy. The rallies may have died down, but citizen-led activism has only ramped up.

A key indicator of the tea party’s staying power is how many Republican incumbents try to cloak themselves in the messages of the movement.

For example, State Rep. Vicki Truitt of Tarrant County has a legislative record largely antithetical to the tea party movement. During the 2009 legislative session – just as the national tea party movement was coming into being – Rep. Truitt was actively pushing a massive new tax hike in the legislature. She wanted more money flowing to boondoggle fake-transportation projects.

A poll by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram found 96 percent of Tarrant County voters – Truitt’s home district – opposed the tax hike measure. Nevertheless, she promised to return in 2011 to fight for the tax hike.

Back home, tea party folks in her district saw Rep. Truitt had been unopposed in her 2008 primary, so they went to work against her. She ended up with three opponents in the 2010 primary. Ms. Truitt out-spent her rivals nearly 10-to-1 (her $300,000 to their combined total of less than $35,000), yet she garnered just 52 percent of the vote.

So after all that, and after bad-mouthing the tea party activists who defeated her tax hike, she sent campaign mailers describing herself as… a tea party candidate.

More significantly, when Truitt (barely) returned to the legislature in 2011 she somehow forgot to fight for that promised tax hike legislation. She won the election, but the tea party won the policy fight.

Many of her tax-and-spend friends lost big in the 2010. Remember her fellow big-government legislators like Tommy Merritt and Delwin Jones? They fell in primaries. That same tea party energy also flipped 23 Obamacrat seats to the GOP in November of 2010, creating Texas’ first Republican super-majority.

Significantly, those were 23 Democrats counted on by moderate Joe Straus – an establishment guy who spent the 2010 election season thumbing his nose at the tea party by publically refusing to endorse conservative challengers over liberal Democrats – even headlining a liberal Democrat’s fundraiser!

Mr. Straus emerged from the November election facing a fight for the speakership. Never before in state history did an embattled speaker have to do what Joe Straus did: wage an unconvincing public campaign. He took out ads on the Drudge Report, had a Facebook page and a social media campaign – all telling the untruth that he shared the tea party’s values.

Speaker Straus won re-election thanks mainly to the purse-power of the lobby, pressure on new legislators from establishment donors, and the compressed nature of the challenge. Yet something fundamentally big changed.

First, the “pledge card” system that ruled the Texas House’s leadership structure has gone subterranean to non-existent. Many candidates had “pledged” support to the moderate Straus in 2010 before hearing from their constituents, setting up problems at home. As the 2011 session winded down, incumbents backed off from signing pledge cards – worried about appearances (and pressure) back home.

Second, the speakership in specific – and leadership in general – will be a primary-race issue, for the first-time in four decades or longer. Certainly not “the” issue, but “a” issue. Why? Legislative leadership affects policy outcomes.

Remember, the Straus “leadership” failed to produce meaningful budget reforms: spending limits, zero-based budgeting or anything that would stave off future fiscal problems.

Frankly, the 2011 legislative session – with that super-majority of tea-party delivered-candidates – produced little more than what would have come out of an 80-seat GOP majority.

The tea party in Texas has grown and matured since 2009. Candidates inspired – even recruited – by tea party members in urban, suburban and rural districts are running sophisticated campaigns. For example, Rep. Truitt is being challenged this year by conservative favorite Giovanni Capriglione, who has been successfully engaging Tarrant County voters in local campaigns – including engineering the defeat of a tax hike. (While TFR didn’t endorse in 2010, we recently endorsed Mr. Capriglione.)

More than even losing, many long-safe incumbents are worried about expensive, Truitt-style victories that leave them vulnerable and exposed. That’s part of the reason so many are retiring.

Incumbents are watching a good-ol’ boy system crumble under the energy of tea-powered activists. Tea party-inspired activists have been quietly stepping into the heavy-lifting jobs of partisan politics – becoming precinct chairs and similarly critical tasks.

Insider and media-types struggling for relevance will keep telling themselves the movement was a tempest in a teapot, or controlled by some puppet-master. The facts on the ground of the new political reality – the behavior and words of incumbents and challengers alike – run counter to that misguided belief.

The tea party as a movement has been successful because they aren’t seeking power or prominence for themselves. They’ve circumvented the mainstream media and exist without the approval of the ruling elite. The core message of the tea party – self-governance and limiting government – resonates so strongly because it goes so strongly to who we are as Texans.

That’s why in 2012 the tea party in Texas is brewing stronger and stronger.

The report went on to point out this key bit if information: “Police say Bruce found his victims by hanging around college campuses, where he knew he could find women and follow them home.”

If you are a person who takes seriously self-responsibility and chooses to be legally armed to protect against such evil predators, Texas law disarms you and makes you the easy target this Bruce scumbag was seeking, if you work on, or attend as a student, a Texas college or university.

Bruce is not unique, most predators choose the easiest victims. Current Texas law, which bans concealed carry license holders from carrying while in university facilities, unnecessarily creates a class of unarmed victims for serial rapists and murderers who do plan their crimes and seek out those least likely to fight back effectively.

Under current law, even if you choose to be well trained and licensed, you are made a clear target any time you walk from school to your home, to a restaurant or other business, or even to your vehicle in some distant dark and dangerous parking structure.

This state-sponsored creation of easy targets for criminals is immoral and needs to stop. The Legislature needs to stop caving to the irrational and disproved arguments of college presidents and pass campus carry in the next session.

Resources: http://www.campuscarry.com/  http://concealedcampus.org/  http://www.prattontexas.com/antiwimpshell.htm

Earlier in the week, Texas Department of Transportation officials announced plans to explore plans to build a passenger rail line from Austin to Houston. The estimated cost of this new taxpayer funded project is only $1 billion.

But that’s not the cost of the entire route to Houston. The high-speed trains, estimated to run at 110 mph, would stop in Hempstead, a mere 53 miles away from downtown Houston. A new, slower, commuter line would need to be built connecting Hempstead to Houston.

Of course, TxDOT did not include the cost estimates of a Hempstead to Houston line in their study.

While this still may sound cheap if you’re comparing it to California standards, consider that their commuter-rail project was first sold at a price tag of $33.6 billion in 2008. In only four years, they’re running 13 years behind schedule with a price tag closer to $98.5 billion.

That alone should warn Texas to stay away from these “mass-transit” projects.

But California’s mistake isn’t the only thing telling taxpayers this isn’t a good idea. Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of Economics at Harvard University and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has already analyzed the proposed rail line from Houston to Dallas/Fort Worth. His findings indicate that the Houston to Dallas/Fort Worth line is going to run $500 million in the red every year.

A line from Houston to Austin surely won’t do any better.

And let’s not forget that this initial estimate is only for the construction of the line, it does not account for annual operations and maintenance. A line from Austin to San Antonio that’s already being studied is expected to incur tens of millions of dollars in annual operating costs. One can safely assume those costs will be even higher for a line running from Austin to Houston.

So far, taxpayers have already footed the bill just to study commuter rail across the state to the tune of $25 million. With no evidence these projects will actually improve traffic or travel efficiency above driving or flying, we shouldn’t waste any more tax dollars, on research or construction, to find out what the real costs will be.

Mr. Flynn introduced House Bill 2491 that would have placed a moratorium on the “assessments of certain public school students under the public school accountability system.” (TFR strongly supported Flynn’s HB 2491.)

Rob Eissler (Photo by Bob Daemmrich, Texas Tribune)

After being heard in the House Public Education Committee, Chairman Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands) blocked the bill from receiving a vote, thereby killing the legislation. (Committee chairs in the Texas House are appointed by the Speaker, which was Joe Straus last session.)

Mr. Flynn noted the moratorium was needed to help protect schools from the unreasonably high costs imposed by the new statewide tests. Many argued Mr. Flynn’s legislation would have saved $400 million… if only Mr. Eissler would have allowed it move forward.

So it is a bit ironic that the same Rob Eissler — who wouldn’t allow a committee vote on the moratorium, HB 2491 — is now saying the state’s education commissioner should do what he as the committee chairman would not. (Mr. Eissler has a challenger in the 2012 Republican Primary.)

This week the Texas Tribune reported Mr. Eissler has “added his voice to the growing chorus asking the Texas Education Agency to defer implementation” of the new statewide test. This means Mr. Eissler is now campaigning in favor of an outcome that he killed legislatively in the 82nd Legislature.

Such clear hypocrisy is probably welcome news for Mr. Eissler’s current primary challenger.

Of course, there is a significant difference between what Mr. Flynn proposed and what Mr. Eissler now advocates.

Mr. Flynn was concerned about the cost of the test, and wanted schools to have that money available for classroom instruction. He wanted to put resources in the classroom.

Mr. Eissler is only took notice when self-interested school district administrators started fretting about implementing the test. He was okay with spending the money on the test, he’s just trying to stop the scores from counting.

Frankly, Mr. Eissler’s new position is somewhat insulting. During session he wouldn’t allow a vote to stop the test and save money. Now, with an election coming, he wants taxpayers to still foot the bill for the tests, but not at least get the benefit of any data the test would allegedly collect.

Ultimately, Dan Flynn was concerned with substance, while Rob Eissler is concerned with perception and politics. Mr. Flynn tried to halt the tests and let more money flow to the classroom, while Mr. Eissler is only taking action when bureaucrats began worrying about their image.

Mr. Eissler is protecting the bureaucracy, when Mr. Flynn’s proposal would have protected students, teachers and taxpayers.

Jonathan Stickland

“Jonathan Stickland has demonstrated himself to be a strong conservative who can ably represent the values and principles of voters in Tarrant County,” said the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan. “With Jonathan Stickland, taxpayers will have a legislator who will oppose new taxes, fight for a stronger Texas economy, and limit government spending.”

Mr. Stickland is seeking the Republican nomination against incumbent House member Todd Smith.

Sullivan continued: “Voters are looking for energetic leaders like Jonathan Stickland who will govern on the conservative values and principles that will strengthen Texas’ families.”

ABOUT TFR
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (www.EmpowerTexans.com) is one of the state’s leading organizations working to promote sound tax policy, government transparency, and greater efficiency in spending.

Similar to the New Braunfels ISD iPad proposal, the audacious plan to replace traditional textbooks with iPads is wasteful to say the least. But unlike NBISD that would initially implement iPads at only one grade level, Fort Bend ISD is giving iPads to seven grade levels all at once!

What is Fort Bend’s iPad program going to cost? A whopping $18 million. Over the next two and a half years, the plan will put iPads in the hands of the district’s second through eighth graders.

The aim of the program is to improve science test scores, which have been less than satisfactory across the entire district. But given the extremely limited selection of textbooks currently available on the iPad, parents and taxpayers alike should be asking exactly how these devices are going to be a contribution, not a detriment, to the education process.

Like many school districts in Texas, Fort Bend ISD has had its share of budget problems over the last two years. Getting rid of teachers has served as the district’s main solution to budget shortfalls.

In April 2010, the district announced the elimination of 470 teaching positions. About half of these teachers were eventually hired back.

In 2011, FBISD faced budget issues again and, in turn, eliminated 483 positions. At the time of the announcement, Superintendent Jim Tenney warned teachers that the probability of being hired back was less likely than in 2010. Another official with the district stated, “we don’t anticipate being able to bring back the teachers we’ve lost in previous years.”

It must have taken a lot of nerve for the FBISD board to pass this iPad plan especially since the district filed one of the primary lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the state’s school finance system as the lead plaintiff!

There is no doubt e-readers will have a place in the classroom. But buying cutting-edge gadgets without a clear classroom connection and a proven track record is a recipe for waste.

Buying iPads for 2^nd through 8^th graders… $18 million. Spending that money on a gadget after cutting nearly 1,000 teaching positions… ridiculous.

Travis Clardy

“Travis Clardy has demonstrated himself to be a strong conservative who is best suited to represent the values and principles of East Texas’ voters,” said the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan. “In Travis Clardy, taxpayers will have a legislator who opposes new taxes, fights for a stronger Texas economy, and limits government spending.”

Mr. Clardy is seeking the Republican nomination in a district covering Rusk, Cherokee and Nacogdoches counties. The district includes the home of left-leaning State Rep. Chuck Hopson, who recently switched to the Republican Party.

Sullivan continued: “Voters are looking for leaders like Travis Clardy who will govern on the conservative values and principles that strengthen Texas’ families.”

ABOUT TFR
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (www.EmpowerTexans.com) is one of the state’s leading organizations working to promote sound tax policy, government transparency, and greater efficiency in spending.

In the children's movie "An American Tail," Honest John registers the dead as voters.

Today, the Pew Center released a new report stating that nationwide, approximately 1.8 million dead people are registered to vote.  In addition, 24 million registrations are said to be invalid or inaccurate.  This is the tip of the iceberg with regards to the problems with voter registration in this country, and there seems to be little will to address them.

This is such a great example of the ineptitude of bureaucracy.  Government agencies, and governments themselves, don’t share information.  Death records from the Social Security Administration, for example, could be cross-referenced with voter rolls in a given state each year, but they aren’t.  States don’t share lists of newly registered voters to cross-reference, either.  In Texas, our counties don’t even share that information, so if you move from say, Denton County to Travis County, you may be registered to vote in both counties.

Data-matching is often responsible for legitimate voters dropping from the rolls.  There is no real way to guarantee invalid registrations fall permanently off voter rolls, since readjustments are sometimes necessary to catch valid registrations that have been cut.  And we do know that voter registration problems occur.

On the same day that this appalling information comes out, we get news of a lawsuit filed against the state of Texas by a group called Voting for America.  The lawsuit alleges that volunteer voter registrars are kept from doing their jobs by onerous restrictions, and that  limited public access to voter rolls keeps anyone from knowing for sure whether a voter is properly added to the system.  Never mind that the opportunity to register to vote is quite literally everywhere – when you get your driver’s license, on the counter at the grocery store and the post office and countless other places, often in welcoming packets for new homeowners and renters.  The lawsuit does cite some obvious problems, especially in the process and requirements for volunteer registrars, but it seems that ballot integrity is less important to Voting for America than sheer numbers of registered voters.  The priority ought to be focusing on making sure that only those who are properly registered have their votes counted accurately.

It hasn’t gotten as much play as the drama over redistricting in Texas, but caught up in a similar battle with the U.S. Department of Justice is the voter identification law passed last year.  It was supposed to go into effect by now, but the most liberal DOJ in American history is hamstringing Texas elections and election integrity five ways from Sunday, and it doesn’t look like it will end soon.  Voter identification won’t solve all the problems with regard to voter registration.  But it is a huge step in the right direction; with so much uncertainty as to whether the voter rolls are even accurate, the very least we can do to ensure integrity at the ballot box is ask people to prove their identity.  The Department of Justice’s continuing hostility to Texas’ attempts to protect ballot integrity is a perfect example of the administration’s lack of concern in this matter.

I say all of this while the deep ambiguity of our postponed primary season continues.  Which is also due to those more concerned about appearances than anything else, and a vindictive Department of Justice set on disenfranchising Texans as long as possible.  The fun just never ends.

The Brownsville Herald reports that Mariano Ayala, the CEO of the Brownsville CVB “wants people to feel the same way about Brownsville [as they do New Orleans], thus the CVB’s new slogan: “Always a Fiesta.” Ayala, Mayor Tony Martinez and other officials inaugurated the new campaign Monday evening … with an official dedication of February as “Brownsville WOW!” month. The idea is to keep the WOW! going through the entire year, with help from events such as the Latin Jazz Festival and Air Fiesta.”

“We are a city that has for the longest time been promoted as ‘On the Border, By the Sea,’ and now we’re adding WOW! and its accompanying slogan ‘Always a Fiesta,’” Ayala told the Herald. And in case you were worried, Ayala said the new slogan won’t replace ‘On the Border, By the Sea” but will augment it.

I have a lifelong background in marketing, I go to the Rio Grande Valley often, and I know quite a bit about Brownsville. And guess what? Always a Fiesta and WOW!, in all caps with an exclamation point, does not make me want to spend a dime or a minute in Brownsville.

When are taxpayers going to put a stop to this stuff? I’d bet that Brownsville will get more spill-over business from the new private Schlitterbahn development on South Padre Island, at no cost to taxpayers, than it will get from a lifetime of City spending on silly slogans. Empower the private sector and minimize local government – that actually works. WOW!

Is Barack Obama your man? Apparently he is to the administrators at Tipps Elementary School in Houston. The school is requiring kindergarteners to learn these and other verses to a song praising the President. Stanzas in the song include:

Who really likes to play basketball?
Obama really likes to play basketball
Who’s gonna answer our every call?
Every Call, Basketball
Outside the box, Chicago White Sox
Resident, President

Who’s famous slogan is Yes we can?
Obams’s famous slogan is Yes we can
Who do we know is the man?
Barack Obama is the man
He’s our man, Yes we can!
Every Call, Basketball
Outside the box, Chicago White Sox
Resident, President

(See below for the full song lyrics.)

Kelly Durham, the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District assistant superintendent for communications (that such a position exists should be a story within itself), claimed the song was “an instructional activity to honor Black History Month.”

Instructional activity? Maybe in the eyes of Saul Alinsky.

What exactly is instructional about teaching kindergarteners that Barack Obama is “the man,” who “thinks outside the box,” who’s “gonna answer our every call?”

It would be one thing to teach students as young as kindergarteners a song with historical facts about each president, or in the context of Black History Month, facts about prominent black historical figures.

But there’s nothing factual about teaching students that Obama’s “the man” who’s “gonna answer our every call” — that’s just propaganda. Propaganda that your tax dollars are funding.

The Barack Obama Song

Who is our 44^th President?
Obama is our 44^th President
Who is a DC resident?
Obama is a DC resident
Resident, President

Who’s favorite team is the Chicago White Sox?
Obama’s favorite team is the Chicago White sox
Who really thinks outside the box?
Obama really thinks outside the box
Outside the box, Chicago White Sos
Resident, President

Who really likes to play basketball?
Obama really likes to play basketball
Who’s gonna answer our every call?
Every Call, Basketball
Outside the box, Chicago White Sox
Resident, President

Who’s famous slogan is Yes we can?
Obams’s famous slogan is Yes we can
Who do we know is the man?
Barack Obama is the man
He’s our man, Yes we can!
Every Call, Basketball
Outside the box, Chicago White Sox
Resident, President
Who won a grammy for “Dreams of my Father”?
Obama won a grammy for “Dreams of my Father”?
Now can you guess who’s a famous author
Barack Obama is a famous author

Famous Author, Dreams of my Father
He’s our man, Yes we can!
Every Call, Basketball
Outside the box. Chicago White Sox
Resident President

Who wants to go to college at Yale?
Malia & Sasha will go to college at Yale
Who’ll make sure they won’t fail?
Barack & Michelle know they won’t fail

They won’t fail, they’re going to Yale
Famous Author, Dream of my Father
He’s our man, Yes we can!
Every Call, Basketball
Outside the box, Chicago White Sox
Resident, President

Van Taylor

“Throughout his first legislative session, Van Taylor did what he said he would do by putting the principles of his constituents ahead of the special interests in Austin,” said the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan.

“As a strong, commonsense conservative, Van Taylor could be counted on to do what was best for his constituents, the people of Texas, and future of the state’s economy.”

Sullivan noted that Taylor earned the “Taxpayer Champion Award” for his rating on the Fiscal Responsibility Index, which examines the votes lawmakers cast votes during the legislative session.

Bryan Hughes

“Throughout his time in the Texas Legislature, Bryan Hughes has put the conservative principles of his constituents ahead of the special interests in Austin,” said the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan.

“As a strong, commonsense conservative, Bryan Hughes can be counted on from the first vote of a legislative session to the last to do what is in the best interests of his constituents, the people of Texas, and future of the state’s economy.”

Sullivan noted that Hughes has consistently ranked at the top of the Texas House, earning the 2012 “Taxpayer Champion Award” for his rating on the Fiscal Responsibility Index, which examines the votes lawmakers cast votes during the legislative session.

Bill Zedler

“Throughout his service in the Texas Legislature, Bill Zedler has put the conservative principles of his constituents ahead of the special interests in Austin,” said the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan.

“As a strong, commonsense conservative, Bill Zedler can be counted on from the first vote of a legislative session to the last to do what is in the best interests of his constituents, the people of Texas, and future of the state’s economy.”

Sullivan noted that Zedler has earned the “Taxpayer Champion Award” for his rating on the Fiscal Responsibility Index, which examines the votes lawmakers cast votes during the legislative session.

Rail is proving to be quite the boondoggle in city after city, so we have to applaud the Congressmen who decided to stop diverting funds to it.  Meanwhile, in Austin, the ongoing debate about funding for Capital Metro’s MetroRail continues.  The latest discussion is over whether to expand service to the weekends, in the hopes of increasing ridership.  The estimated yearly cost would be about $2.2 million.

Whether people would use the line on the weekends or not, the added cost for something taxpayers have rejected repeatedly in Austin’s history should be prohibitive.  Austinites are already paying through the nose for a service the majority never use or need – they are subsidizing convenience for a very small segment of the population.  Expanding service to the weekend will cost more than it is ultimately worth in terms of revenue.

The city council met today to discuss this, among other matters, and postponed a decision on expanding service for MetroRail.  One has to wonder if the council simply didn’t want to pursue this with a room full of agitated activists – also on the docket was a decision about the Austin Energy rate hike, which has plenty of folks hopping mad.  Either way, this isn’t something that should just be postponed – shelving it would be an even better idea, at least until Austinites have the opportunity to vote on the talked-about bond package for MetroRail later this year.  MetroRail was foisted on the public without their approval already, and adding to the cost on a whim would be extremely foolish.

A shame Congress does something right, in stopping a diversion of money meant for highways, and cities like Austin continue to insist on funding transportation boondoggles.

It’s fair to say the voters of Texas have done some rather serious re-districting on their own. In 2010, voters sent incumbent Obamacrats packing – flipping 23 seats from liberal legislators to conservative campaigners.

But as we see repeated in state after state, year after year, the results of the democratic process are inconvenient to the liberals who occupy the modern Democratic Party. So they sue – often on the most specious of grounds – to undermine the will of the people.

Attorney General Greg Abbott

Earlier this week Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott attempted a court-requested comprise with the liberal factions suing the state over redistricting. Despite their high-sounding claims about minority representation, most of the lawsuits come down to Democratic partisans wanting the courts to impose maps on the state guaranteeing the election of more liberal candidates.

Candidates the voters of Texas increasingly reject every time they have the opportunity.

There is no doubt the courts have a legitimate and legal role in reviewing district lines are fairly drawn, that voters are not disenfranchised through gerrymandering. Yet Texas’ experience with redistricting this year demonstrates just how wrongly the courts can be abused in this process.

Judicial Activism

Venue-shopping liberals take their cases to judges whose partisan reach exceed their judicial grasp. The three-judge federal panel in San Antonio tried to impose a map that could only liberal activists could love. Remember, the US Supreme Court unanimously rejected the map and instructed the San Antonio panel to work more closely from the maps drawn in public by the Legislature.

The legislative-drawn maps sure weren’t perfect, but at least they were drawn by those authorized by our federalist system to do so.

The intractable left isn’t interested in electoral fairness – remember, they oppose efforts to prevent voter fraud – and it is no surprise that they apparently would rather toss the state into electoral crisis than cut their losses and move on.

Frankly, there really can be compromise in this sort of suit. Giving the liberal partisans – who have hijacked the electoral process – anything beyond the narrow reading of current law is to hand them a victory while dealing Texas voters a defeat.

Mr. Abbott did his job, well and ably representing his client, by seeking to provide a compromise with the plaintiffs in an ill-willed lawsuit. He attempted to do what the courts foolishly ordered – to negotiate in good faith with those who have shown no interest in exercising good will.

So for now Texas is still without representational maps and without an election date. The allies of the Democratic Party in Texas have proven themselves to be the opponents of democracy in our democratic republic.

In the 2012 election season, voters are going to take a stronger look at the candidates. Looking for legislative candidates who don’t just talk-the-talk of conservativism, but actually walk the policy-making walk.

Our new ConservativeLeadersProject.com website is profiling examples of conservative leaders… and legislative lackeys.

The lackeys tend to be the ones who talk like conservatives at home, yet in Austin work to water down reforms or go-along with the Austin lobby.

A couple examples… State Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo campaigns like a conservative in his west Texas district. He hits all the high notes on the campaign trail. Yet in Austin, he consistently takes the low-road of big government, voting for more regulations and higher taxes.

In the Texas House, Vicki Truitt of Southlake describes herself as a bulldog; too bad she barks at all the wrong things. She proves herself willing time and again to work with tax-funded lobbyists to raise taxes for boondoggle spending sprees. She brags about her support from big-government liberals.

There are many strong conservatives in both bodies, like State Sens. Jane Nelson, Brian Birdwell, Dan Patrick and others. And the House has commonsense leaders like State Reps. Jim Landtroop, Bryan Hughes, Phil King and many others.

Yet in both bodies, the lackey-wing of GOP conspire with liberal Democrats to stifle, stymie and otherwise oppose everything from spending limits to zero-based budgeting.

If Texans truly want the legislature to pursue meaningful reforms, voters will need to clean out the House (and the Senate) — replacing lackeys with leaders.

Attorney General Greg Abbott

“Attorney General Greg Abbott is promoting a commonsense solution that addresses real problems without unfairly or improperly reaching beyond the will of the legislature and the majority of Texans as expressed through the 2010 elections,” said Michael Quinn Sullivan, the president of Empower Texans. “Without the diligent efforts of Mr. Abbott and his team, Texas’ voters — and our electoral system — would have already lost out to the maneuverings of partisan interests and judicial over-reach.”

Mr. Abbott’s statement can be found on his website.

I bet many of you don’t remember that STARR tests are the embodiment of the end-of-course exams various members of the school lobby pushed as a replacement for TAKS. Likely fewer remember that I said that once TAKS was gone and the new tests were on the way, we’d be treated to the same horror stories in the press about how unfair it all is.

Now even the Texas education commissioner is whining about the tests and money but, he and the school lobby are not doing much whining about the misdirection of funds in district after district toward items that are not central to the provision of a quality education.

Each week in my press review I run across many new school district spending programs focused on things outside the classroom. This week began with a story out of Snyder which explains that Snyder ISD has approved the spending of more than three and a half million dollars for new home grandstands and a press box at its football stadium – hardly central to quality classroom instruction, or even to how players play the game on the field.

The money keeps flowing out and schools keep suing you for more of your money as there is no end to the list of fun things each would like to spend your money upon.

If three point six million were invested very conservatively by Snyder ISD, the district could earn enough money to employ three top teachers, for decades to come, with no further cost to taxpayers. Instead, they’ve chosen to focus resources on nice stands for football stadium bleachers for a handful of games each year.

There is a priority problem in Texas public education.

So how many jobs has Emerging Technology Fund created since 2006? Only 820. In other words, taxpayers spent over $200,000 per job created, a $192.7 million investment in total.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

State Comptroller Susan Combs warned about this very scenario in December 2010 when issuing a report on Texas’ economic growth stating, “The Texas economy will grow, with or without incentives.”

Naturally, the Legislature didn’t listen.

And the bureaucrats in charge of the fund aren’t getting the message either. Jonathan Taylor, director of the Emerging Technology Fund, is pushing for the state to loosen its transparency measures that require companies receiving funds report the number of jobs they actually created, claiming the companies consider that “confidential information.”

Insulted? You should be.

Short of eliminating this program all together, there should be MORE transparency measures in place, including providing the public full disclosure over who is in charge of choosing the recipients, how much they receive, and how they use the tax dollars allotted to them. If companies don’t want to be subjected to such scrutiny, they are free to seek private forms of venture capital.

Besides passing on a grand opportunity to cut the Emerging Technology Fund out of the budget (and it’s related program, the Texas Enterprise Fund), the Legislature also passed on an opportunity to cut out the tax-funded film subsidy program. Taxpayer Champion David Simpson, who authored the amendment to defund it, was one of only 28 members of the Texas House that opposed it.

So much for all those campaign promises of limited government conservatism.

And lest we forget the $250 million dollar boondoggle the Legislature spent to subsidize Formula 1 racing outside the City of Austin. That’s been a great investment too, hasn’t it?

Governor Perry has been a strong advocate of these types of taxpayer-funded investment projects, one of the few areas of public policy where we differ with him. While his position is unlikely to change, his acknowledgement of these funds’ ineffectiveness, especially given this recent report, would go a long way to motivating the Legislature to finally end the state’s practice of corporate welfare once and for all.

Matt Rinaldi

“As a grassroots leader, Matt Rinaldi has demonstrated himself to be a strong conservative who can best represent the values and principles of his district,” said the president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, Michael Quinn Sullivan. “In Matt Rinaldi, taxpayers will have a legislator who can be counted on to oppose new taxes, fight for a stronger Texas economy, and limit government spending.”

Mr. Rinaldi is seeking the Republican nomination for the open Dallas County seat currently held by State Rep. Jim Jackson, who has announced he is retiring at the end of this term.

Sullivan continued: “Voters are looking for leaders like Matt Rinaldi who will govern on the conservative values and principles that will strengthen Texas’ families.”

ABOUT TFR
Texans for Fiscal Responsibility (www.EmpowerTexans.com) is one of the state’s leading organizations working to promote sound tax policy, government transparency, and greater efficiency in spending.