U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul’s decision not to run for the U.S. Senate means he won’t be testing one of the truisms of Texas politics: A seat in the Texas congressional delegation is a lousy launching pad for statewide office.
Ann Richards
Posted in
Health care
Video: Cecile Richards Visits Capitol, Defends Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards, a native Texan and daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards, visited the Capitol on Wednesday to defend funding for womens’ health services.
Posted in
Health care
Cecile Richards: The TT Interview
The president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Democratic Gov. Ann Richards on Republican lawmakers’ efforts to defund her organization, a Texas attorney general’s opinion she says will keep low-income women from preventative care, and how her mother would’ve handled all of this.
Posted in
Politics
Fair Game?
Are families out of bounds in politics? A newspaper columnist’s recent unflattering piece on Anita Perry has what passes for a Royal Court at the Capitol debating that question.
Posted inState Government
On the Records: Once, Twice, Three Times a Governor
Most people know that Gov. Rick Perry, inaugurated to a third term Tuesday, has served longer than any other chief executive in Texas history. What’s remarkable, though, is just how much longer than the state’s previous governors — even those who’ve served during the modern era.
Posted inState Government
Cellar Dwellers
Texas Democrats have become a political version of the Baltimore Orioles. If Ann Richards were alive, she and Earl Weaver would be comparing notes — in salty language — on what went wrong with their old teams.
Posted in
Energy
Landing or Launching?
There are lily pads and launch pads in Texas government, and the Railroad Commission is a launch pad. Being a railroad commissioner is less an end than a means — a way to propel yourself into a better, higher-profile and more powerful job. Which is why a serious reform effort is afoot.
Posted in
Politics
Neener-Neener
It’s an impulse most of us learn to suppress in the seventh grade — the need give your enemies wedgies, to tape “kick me” signs to their backs, to put lizards in their lunchboxes. Political people don’t suppress it — they channel it into goofy stunts to attract attention, ridicule opponents and blow off steam.
Posted inState Government
The Last Populist
Like his hero Little Richard, Jim Hightower knew how to scream and piss off the establishment. As a tour of his archives led by the man himself reveals, his is the story of a Texas-style progressive movement that peaked before the young Texans of today can even remember.
Posted in
Economy
Read My Lapse
“You have to do a few things when you run for office in Texas,” says one of Rick Perry’s allies. “You have to debate. You have to release your tax returns. And you have to say you won’t raise taxes.” Bill White will surely debate the governor before November’s general election, but at the moment he hasn’t done the other two. The former probably won’t sink him, but the latter could — by declining to drink the no-new-taxes potion, he’s handing his opponent a weapon to use against him. Unless, of course, he’s successful at changing the way the argument goes.