Blogs: October 2015

Halloween is upon us, but it's already been a scary week for Jeb Bush and homeowners thinking about their property tax bills – but Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are trying their best to calm everyone down. Calm by nature, Dr. Ben Carson started the week off early causing a stir with his proclamation that he's against abortion in cases of rape and incest, while two of Texas politics' more animated politicians – Dan Patrick and Ted Cruz – essentially endorsed each other. Both Patrick and Governor Abbott also endorsed the legislature preventing so-called sanctuary cities in Texas, but not enough to require legislators to haunt Austin in a special session. Finally, President Obama followed the lead of Texas in pressing for a reduction in standardized testing – a treat for kids and their parents, who increasingly told pollsters they find frequent high stakes testing pretty ghastly.

While there’s not a lot to be added to the chorus of sad assessments of Jeb! Bush’s presidential campaign (just Google “Bush and “toast” and take your pick), from the perspective of politics in Texas, George W.’s little brother's lack of traction in his family's home state reflect his broader difficulties as we get closer and closer to actual voting and caucusing.

Dan Patrick’s endorsement of Ted Cruz had all the trappings of business as usual, in which a statewide official pledges fealty to a national candidate who is both an ideological fellow traveller and a big cog in the same political party machinery. Not surprisingly, the event and the media coverage of it provided sound bites of earnestness mated with deep camp: Cruz portrayed Patrick as a conservative warrior willing to crawl “through broken glass with a knife between his teeth”; Patrick described endorsing Cruz as “probably the biggest honor in my life.” I think I have a casting idea for the central buddies of True Detective season 3.

The presence of Texas candidates for speaker notwithstanding, Paul Ryan decided he would take a stab at the least attractive job in American politics this week, leaving the state to make national news not by putting a Texan in the Speaker’s chair but by pushing the GOP’s ongoing attack on Planned Parenthood to a new level. Texas ideas nonetheless had their day in the Congress, as the Senate tried and failed to take up anti-Sanctuary City legislation. David Vitter at least probably appreciated the effort, but 2011 called and they want their issue back. In the presidential arena, House Republicans teamed up with Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb to give the Clinton campaign a good week, while over in the GOP George W. Bush is So. Over. Ted. Cruz. And wants you to know it, apparently. It didn’t seem, however, to do much good, as the GOP 2016 stories at week's end were about Carson surpassing Trump in Iowa polling while the Jeb! campaign moved to cut payroll costs.

The era of “what, me worry?” when it comes to the effects of the oil boom came closer to the end this week with the comptroller’s downward revision of his revenue estimates, a revision based largely on the effects of the collapse in oil prices. The Lt. Governor followed with his serial interim charge announcements calling for “options to further reduce the tax burden on property owners.” On the national stage, the vacuum created by the recognition that being Speaker of the U.S. House is a one-way ticket out of electoral politics led some GOP members to launch trial balloons. Meanwhile, over in the Democratic Presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton reminded Democratic voters that she’s the pro in the race with a mostly sharp, funny performance that also showed her shrewdness by effortlessly getting to Bernie Sanders’ left on guns. Speaking of guns, the media was buzzing – and in some cases seemingly altering their policy on language appropriate for family newspapers – with the announcement by some activists at UT-Austin of a protest against the new campus carry law that will involve the open carry of dildos.

Lt. Governor Patrick's interim charges represent a potpourri of issues ranging from the unsung operational stuff of government to the more provocative issues that rouse the GOP's voting base. University of Texas/Texas Tribune Polling suggests that the GOP primary electorate is much less interested in the details of issues like water and electricity than they are in issues like immigration, border security, and the vociferous protection and expansion of gun rights.

This week in politics started with American politics' version of the Fall Classic with the beginning of the US Supreme Court's session. Over in the legislative branch, the leading candidate for the Speaker of the House dropped out unexpected Thursday, a reflection of just how miserable divisions in the GOP caucus have made the party's leadership. Also on the national stage, Joe Biden's decision to enter the presidential fray draws ever closer-- or not. In Texas politics, we got a double blast from the recent past with news when David Dewhurst and Rick Perry were back in the news.

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick's office released a list of interim charges that led strong for conservatives, and once again invited attention to the different attitudes and priorities of different elements of the Texas Republican Party.

Much of the week was filled with continuing storylines that are illuminated below with polling data and other graphics – attacks on Planned Parenthood, Ted Cruz's campaign for the Republican Presidential Nomination, more of Hillary Clinton's vexed run for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and another entry into the race for the House seat currently held by Speaker Joe Straus. The end of the week turned much more sadly serious with another mass shooting at a community college.