Rick Perry vs World

07 January 2007

Overplaying your hand

I said a few days ago that Craddick appeared to have gained an edge in the race to be Speaker, unless he overplayed his hand.

Craddick unveiled a new pledge card that also asked for a public vote. Rep. Pitts and Burka both seem to think that Craddick is overplaying his hand. And indeed, I must agree. Why publically signal weakness by unveiling a new pledge card? Why publically commit to a public vote?

The question is whether he has overplayed his hand enough. I doubt that this alone is enough.

On the other hand, Clay Robison reports that someone was standing outside the Austin Club, videotaping to see who went into a meeting of Craddick's supporters. Pitts denies it was anyone related to him, and that seems plausible enough. But the fact that there is someone out there (the new anti-Craddick Dem PAC?) playing hardball makes Pitts look less pure, whether he was behind it or not.

[By the way, it's worth pointing out, as Harvey Kronberg did today, that the newspapers were very exercised about the importance of a public vote in 2002, when it would mean a less conservative speaker. In 2007, these same newspaper editorial boards seem entirely uninterested in the supposed necessary governmental transparency of a public votes, when a public vote appears to mean a more conservative speaker. But they didn't want a public vote in 1991, when conservative Dem Gib Lewis was up for Speaker re-elecition. Notice a pattern here? The editorial boards seem to be willing to flip-flop editorial positions whenever it befits a more liberal candidate. Hmm. Perhaps newspaper editorial boards are really no more principled about process than politicians? Youdon'tdaresay!]

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 11:55 PM | Comments (2)

Worst logic I've heard

RG Ratcliffe:

Meanwhile, Rep. Armando "Mando" Martinez, D-Weslaco, removed his name from the Craddick pledge list without moving to Pitts.

"When you are continuously questioned about that pledge, it has led me to believe that my pledge is not good enough; therefore, I have decided to make my decision on the House floor," Martinez said.

To illustrate how convoluted I believe this logic to be, let me analogize:

[The scene: a husband, explaining to his wife why he cheated on her] "Yes I was going to be faithful to you, honey. But then you kept asking, "Do you love me?" Because you asked me to re-affirm, obviously my love and fidelity is not good enough, so I cheated on you.

Pardon me, but I don't think either makes much sense.

Look at me, I'm blogging like there's no tomorrow. [Does that mean there will be no blogging tomorrow? --ed It just means that I finally had some free time.]

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

The latest math

Here's Paul Burka's latest math on the Speaker Race:

All in all, this has been a pretty quiet day, especially compared to yesterday. Geren and Kuempel coming out for Pitts was not news; most people had them as ABCs all along. Raymond, unlike most of the other Craddick Ds, didn't have plum committee assignments that would be at risk if he switched, so his defection was not a shock. That move was nullified by Democrat Eddie Lucio III's weather-vane endorsement of Craddick. This movement of Ds does help Pitts, but some switchers are more important than others--specifically, what Pitts needs is Republican votes. The math of the speakers race continues to be that Craddick had 69 Rs and 17 Ds pledged to him on December 28. Three of the Ds have defected, leaving him with 83 plus the switchers; Lucio makes 84. That's 9 more than he needs. For Pitts to win, Craddick must lose 10 more votes. Most of them are going to have to be Republicans who are currently pledged to Craddick. Looking at the list of R pledges to Craddick, I can find 10 who OUGHT to switch, but not 10 who are likely to.

Kuempel and Geren have long been known as ABCs, so it's certainly no shock that they are switching.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

Things that make you go "hmm"*

Michelle Middlecity in the Chron:

But Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, acknowledged that there are plenty of Democrats champing at the bit to make Republicans feel their minority status.

But Johnson says she's been telling her GOP friends, "We're not going to be nearly as mean to you all as you've been to us."

I don't doubt Johnson is well-intentioned (although she's not the one who will make the decisions to be nice or not), but it's clear that House Democrats in the majority aren't going to treat the minority party any better than House Republicans in the majority.

They've already broken promises that they would allow the minority to participate. Here's Michael Barone, generally the wisest commentator on politics in Washington:

House Democratic leaders have promised that they will treat the minority more fairly than House Republicans treated them; House Republicans promised the same thing 12 years ago. But House Republicans didn't do so: The three-hour roll call they prolonged to pass the Medicare prescription drug bill in December 2003 was arguably greater abuse than anything the Democrats did in their 40 years in the majority in the House. Now, though Democrats say they'll be fairer after the "100 hours" vote, it looks like the Democrats are going to renege on their promise, too. So are the House Democrats and the House Republicans before them to be condemned as hypocrites? Not by me. I think both sides were sincere when they made their promises. But once in the majority, the Democrats are finding, as the Republicans did before them, it's difficult if not impossible to run a legislature with 435 members without tightly controlling procedure. That means limiting debate to a considerable extent.

Still, I'm puzzled that the Democrats aren't at least going through the motions of committee hearings.

I agree with every word. I remember how embittered House Republicans were when Jim Wright held a vote open for 30 minutes. But, of course, the precedent was set.

*Aw yeah, I'm bringing back the C&C Music Factory.

Posted by Evan @ *"> 01/07/07 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

Dallas-based pizza franchise to accept Mexican pesos

Karen Robinson-Jacobs in the DMN:

Starting Monday, patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos.

Restaurant experts and economists said they knew of no other food chain with locations so far from the Mexican border offering such a service.

"We're trying to reach out to our core customer," Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patrón Inc., said Friday.

I'm surprised no one has done this yet. If there are people willing to pay in pesos, then why not accept pesos?

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 11:15 PM | Comments (1)

Mack: New Houston legislators

The Chron's Kristen Mack has brief portraits of Houston metro's new legislators:

Republicans will hold a 20-11 majority in the state Senate, and Patrick says Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the chamber, will shoulder much responsibility for its direction.

"Will he lead us to the right or to the middle? If he leads us to the right, I think he'll have tremendous support. If he leads us to the middle, there will be significant opposition," Patrick said.

I'm sure that those are Patrick's candid thoughts, but it also provides a great platform for a potential gubernatorial campaign!
Though not as well-known as Patrick, Miles also has made a splashy and not entirely favorable impression.

He caught the attention of some Austin lobbyists by hosting a fundraiser there and seeking contributions of as much as $5,000, a freshman faux pas.

"We asked for that, and we got it," Miles said, and he added that he doesn't think it was a mistake. "Mr. Miles is coming up here to play. I'm not going to Austin to play plantation politics." Good for him for asking for more, but he might want to re-think the third person references to self. Bob Dole can get away with it. He can't.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 11:01 PM | Comments (0)

Amarillo's paper, the Globe News, has been running a series of profiles on area legislators. What a wonderful idea that some of the other dailies in Texas might want to adopt.

Today's is on Sen. Robert Duncan:

Imagine representing an area larger than Mississippi.

State Sen. Robert Duncan has been doing it for 10 years. District 28, which includes 46 counties, is the second-largest state Senate district, not only in Texas but in the continental United States. Only neighboring Texas Senate District 19, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso County, is larger.

...

Duncan, a lawyer who served for four years in the Texas House before being elected senator in 1996, is a key player in the Legislature. He chairs the influential Senate State Affairs Committee and sits on the powerful finance and education committees. In the 79th session he was also a member of the Subcommittee on Capital Funding for Higher Education, Natural Resources, Jurisprudence, Joint Select Committee to Study the Texas Health Insurance Risk Pool Deficit, Interim Committee to Study the Power of Eminent Domain and the Joint Select Committee on Windstorm Coverage.

"He's very well-respected," said Harvey Kronberg, editor of the Quorum Report, an online newsletter that focuses on the Texas Legislature.

...

One of Duncan's goals for the upcoming session is to give the governor more of a say in appointing judges. Under the current system, even if a judge is appointed, before his or her term expires, he or she must run for the post and that is not always the best way to retain experienced jurists. As it happened in the Nov. 7 election in Dallas County where the Democrats swept all the local races, judges are often kicked out of a courtroom because they are affiliated with a losing political party, Duncan said.

Under his proposal, the public would periodically vote on whether to keep judges but the vote would be based on the jurist's record, not party affiliation.

Retention votes for judges are much better idea than partisan votes. But it requires a bunch of legislators sticking their neck out because they care about justice.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 10:40 PM | Comments (0)

A thorn even on the one rose petal

McClatchy wire:

President Bush's hopes of securing a comprehensive immigration overhaul have brightened considerably in the new Democratic-controlled Congress, but resistance from organized labor - one of the Democratic Party's most loyal constituencies - could complicate those efforts.

The AFL-CIO, which represents 53 unions with more than 9 million members, is ratcheting up opposition to a temporary guest worker program, a key element of Bush's immigration plan. At the same time, two powerful unions in a breakaway labor coalition, Change to Win, have tended to support the provision.

You could call the bifurcation a difference between the "haves" and the "have nots," in John Edwards' parlance!

I'd hoped immigration might actually be a good thing a Democratic-controlled Congress might get done. We'll see how slavishly devoted Nancy Pelosi is to John Sweeney.

This part amuses me:

The outlook is a bit more fluid in the House, which under Republican control never seriously debated a comprehensive measure. But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the incoming chairwoman of the House immigration subcommittee, said she is optimistic that House members eventually can find accord on legalization, guest workers, and other contentious provisions.

"We're at the beginning here," she said. "I believe that if we stop yelling at each other and just methodically work our way through the outstanding questions, that we can come up with a practical solution."

The history of immigration bills is largely one of unintended consequences.

Posted by Evan @ 01/07/07 10:17 PM | Comments (0)

05 January 2007

If the Austin press corps could vote...

So if the Austin press corps could vote for speaker, how many votes would Tom Craddick get?

Would he get any?

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/07 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

My analysis of the Speaker's race

I've kept mostly quiet about the speaker's race, because I don't have any inside information. And I question the value of some of the supposedly inside information that is being given out.

That said, it seems to me that Speaker Craddick is quite likely to remain Speaker Craddick. Mainly because I second Paul Burka's assertion that "perceptions become reality, and if you are perceived to be playing a strong hand--not by me, not by the media, but by the players in the game--and then turn out to be bluffing, you are going to lose your credibility. That's what I think happened to Jim Pitts yesterday when he failed to produce a list of supporters."

We know for sure that McCall couldn't beat Craddick. Otherwise, McCall would not have dropped out of the race. Quite clearly, McCall could not garner enough Republican support. McCall says this, and so he dropped out and endorsed Pitts.

Are there enough Republicans to put Pitts over the top who might vote for Pitts but wouldn't vote for McCall? There may be. It seems like quite a few Representatives are unhappy with Speaker Craddick. But even if there is, are these members willing to publically oppose Craddick?

The answer at this point seems obviously no. If Pitts had 75 people who were going to vote for him, he would make that list public. Sure, Craddick and his allies might mobilize a campaign to pressure some who might be wavering, and that is a risk for Pitts. But the far bigger risk for Pitts is looking like he doesn't have the votes. And right now, that's the way it looks for Pitts. If his supposed supporters aren't willing to say publically that they'll vote for Pitts now, then why should we think that they will be willing to say publically that they'll vote for Pitts in a few days?

Leadership races -- whether in Austin or DC -- are always about perception. And the perception right now is that if Pitts were going to win, he would have made his list public.

Note: I'm not entirely saying the race is over. There's always the possibility that the perception could shift, but presumably Pitts has mostly played his hand, and there's not much left. That leaves Craddick overplaying his hand as the most likely determinant of a change in outcome.

Posted by Evan @ 01/05/07 03:51 PM | Comments (0)

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