Big City Columnist…(Updated)
This almost reads like a story from The Onion
Posted on April 29, 2008 – 10:42 am by APRWelcome to AustinPoliticalReport.com — where you’ll find the best buzz and most reliable rumors in the political capital of Texas and surrounding communities.
Dewhurst Hails Court Ruling Upholding Indiana’s Partisan Poll Tax
David Dewhurst wasted little time before hailing the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a voter ID bill law in Inidiana that has been criticized as discriminatory and anti-democratic.
“I look forward to passing a fair voter ID law in Texas next year,” Texas’s very own career-rookie lieutenant governor said in a statement.
Not so fast, countered state Sen. Mario Gallegos (D-Houston), who blocked a similar bill during last year’s legislative session. “The Supreme Court doesn’t have a vote in the Texas Legislature.”
“In a dissenting opinion, Justice David H. Souter said that for those on whom the law had an impact, the burden was ‘serious’ and the state had failed to justify it,” according to a New York Times report. “Like the Virginia poll tax the court struck down 42 years ago, he said, ‘the onus of the Indiana law is illegitimate just because it correlates with no state interest so well as it does with the object of deterring poorer residents from exercising the franchise.’”
Posted on April 29, 2008 – 10:36 am by APRDirect To Video
As early voting in the May 10 Austin city council races gets underway, the main candidates in Place 1 are crowding out the local airwaves. Uncle Lee Leffingwell, 67, goes after whispers that he’s too old or somehow lacking in the energy required to sit on the dais for one more year before he runs for mayor. His TV spot features him jogging around town in shorts apparently borrowed from Bill Clinton. BOR has a link here.
Meanwhile, Leffingwell challenger Jason Meeker is getting his mug on cable TV in a third-party ad paid for by his former campaign treasurer, Discount Electronics chief Rick Culleton. The ad attacks Leffingwell for supporting the infamous Las Manitas bailout loan as well as a pay raise for himself, then for good measure goes after Councilmember Jennifer Kim on the same issues. Both incumbents have refuted the attacks.
Speaking of Kim, she and her opponent Randi Shade each have TV spots of their own. See Kim’s here and Shade’s here.
Posted on April 28, 2008 – 9:07 am by APRBig City Columnist Criticizes Cabela’s Small-Town Ways
The Houston Chronicle’s Rick Casey picks up on the Cabela’s controversy with a column criticizing the outdoor retail chain as a “poster child for that strain of American capitalism which disguises lobbying skills as entrepreneurial spirit.”
Even worse, Casey writes, “this week’s news is that the Buda store will also be refunding a pittance of its tax breaks for the third year in a row due to failing to produce the number of jobs it had guaranteed. The company’s stock is hovering at $13, less than half what it was in 2004 when it was ginning up the hype that won it the tax breaks.”
Read the full column here.
Posted on April 25, 2008 – 10:12 am by APRRe-Elect U.S. Senator David Dewhurst in 2010?
Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday, which brings us to the topic du jour — Gov. Rick Perry and his announcement last week that he will seek another term in two years. His announcement may have failed to convince even as many Texans as voted for him last time (39 percent), but that hasn’t stopped him from doing what he does best — making sure people (including us) are talking about him, especially during a slow news month.
This morning, veteran newsman Gary Scharrer reports that Perry told a group of San Antonio lawmakers that AT&T honcho John Montford might be an apt replacement for UT Chancellor now that Mark Yudof is California-bound. And Capitol Annex reacted by noting that super Aggie Perry may just be trying the clear the field, given that Montford has mentioned his own name as a possible Caesar to Perry’s Lear.
Meanwhile, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison continues to play Hamlet about her own gubernatorial plans.
What’s next? Sen. Hutchison resigns her current post, triggering another opportunity for Perry to clear the field by appointing Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to the U.S. Senate so that Texas’ very own modern-day Henry VIII can then run as an incumbent in the next election.
Posted on April 23, 2008 – 10:09 am by APRHunting For Taxpayer Refunds In Hays County (Updated)
Already more than a quarter million dollars in hock to local Hays County taxpayers, outdoor retailer Cabela’s may now be forced to cough up nearly half-a-million more to the Texas Enterprise Fund.
The controversial state business incentive fund pushed through the Legislature by Rick Perry in 2003 with an initial $300 million taxpayer-backed investment has been criticized for a lack of transparency and for helping import politically connected firms like Cabela’s to compete against existing local businesses.
Cabela’s has come up short of its job-creation targets for three years running and is late with its latest report. A recent study found that one of every three companies pocketing the state incentive money has failed to create the number of jobs originally promised or even laid off workers.
Among the fund’s controversial decisions is a 2004 Christmastime grant of $20 million to Countrywide Financial, a major lender at the center of the current subprime mortgage lending crisis.
The Man’s Bob Elder updates the story of corporations that have received taxpayer-funded incentives from Rick Perry’s Texas Enterprise Fund and then ignored the state deadline for filing required employment report.
“Of the 42 companies that have received money… 11 have missed their deadline,” Elder writes. “That’s a high percentage of companies that have received tax dollars yet haven’t bothered to file their employment-verification reports on tgime with the state.”.
Posted on April 22, 2008 – 10:39 am by APRReversing The Process
In the wake of Rick Perry’s wink-and-nod announcement yesterday that he might seek another term in 2010, some political observers noted the irony of an AP story earlier in the week about a federal inmate in Beaumont who qualified for Idaho’s presidential primary ballot next month.
Usually, politicians do time after being elected.
The inmate, Keith Russell Judd, is serving time for unspecified threats made years ago at the University of New Mexico. According to AP , he submitted the required notarized form and $1,000 check drawn on his prison account, jotting down the Beaumont Enterprise news desk phone number as his campaign contact and an IRS number in Ohio for his campaign coordinator.
“It’s a mockery of the system,” complained an Idaho state Democratic Party spokesman — probably because he hadn’t yet heard the news about Rick Perry.
Posted on April 18, 2008 – 10:29 am by APRIs Perry Really Running?
Don’t count on it, despite the coincidence of a Dallas Morning News story making the rounds on the same afternoon that Perry pal Pope Benedict is celebrating mass in the nation’s capital.
“When asked whether the gubernatorial field would include Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and himself, Mr. Perry responded , ‘I don’t know about them, but it will be Perry in 2010,’” Gromer Jeffers is reporting today.
Perry, who visited the Vatican with his family during Spring Break 2004, has been telling donors privately for at least a month that he has decided to try for another term as Governor in 2010. The news has been met with an unusual amount of skepticism by insiders familiar with Perry’s penchant for tweaking potential Republican primary opponents Kay Bailey Hutchison and David Dewhurst.
Posted on April 17, 2008 – 1:35 pm by APRHard To Find Good Help These Days
State Rep. Nathan Macias lost his primary last month to former New Braunfels mayor Doug Miller by a mere 17 votes. After a recount and lots of public warnings about electoral fraud, Macias’ legal team — including his own committee clerk, a state employee — filed suit. Among the charges: that a significant number of people voted more than once.
According to a report in today’s New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, the soon-to-be-former state legislator’s own chief of staff is listed among the alleged double-voters.
Posted on April 15, 2008 – 11:13 am by APRDiscount Electorals
Austin City Council hopeful Jason Meeker says he wishes his former campaign treasurer wouldn’t try quite so hard to help him in his race against Lee Leffingwell, the once-and-future-mayoral-candidate who has to win re-election to his current council seat first.
An ad in this week’s Austin Chronicle features Discount Electronics chief Rick Culleton backing Meeker. A similar ad earlier prompted Leffingwell’s campaign to argue that it was paid for with corporate money, a charge usually leveled against the Texas Tom-Toms (DeLay and Craddick), not city candidates.
Meeker tells In Fact Daily “he was surprised — not pleasantly — to see the second ad.” But we think it’s a good deal. The Chron gets ad revenue. One candidate gets a tout, and the other gets an issue, both free-of charge. In Fact gets something to write about. And, now, so do we.
Posted on April 14, 2008 – 12:39 pm by APRFools Rush In
Austin’s newspaper of record last week published an excerpt from a phony press release that it falsely attributed to this blog — in a story about the “controversy” surrounding a factual post on this same blog. This morning, the newspaper published a begrudging correction.
Here’s the bottom line: APR has never put out a press release of any kind. People (a category that includes even reporters) are well advised to take personal responsibility for where they get their news. If anonymity is a concern, read something else. The posts on this blog are either fully sourced or labeled as rumor, interesting but unconfirmed. This is not the New York Times. It is a political tip sheet.
When newspapers publish bogus press releases about a blog in stories that breathlessly question factual posts on those same blogs, the issue goes beyond which personality is or isn’t writing for Austin Political Report. The issue is that informed citizens should — and do — avail themselves of a wide variety of news sources. In the end, there are no substitutes for critical judgment and common sense.
Posted on April 8, 2008 – 8:42 am by APRThe Travel Channel Was There, Were You?
If you couldn’t find anything to do last weekend in Austin, then you must not have tried. Between the Custom Hot Rod Show on Soco, Texas Relays, Louisiana Swampfest, Urban music festival and any number of smaller events and shows, our city was on display.
Apparently, the Travel Channel’s Samantha Brown was in town to take advantage of the chaos. Our spies spotted them at Threadgill’s WHQ and walking South Congress with Threadgill’s owner and Austin legend Eddie Wilson.
Word has it they also shot some great scenes at the Continental Club and with proprietor Steve Wertheimer.
Other spots they hit included BBQ in Lockhart, the bats and Zilker. We didn’t get out much this weekend, so thankfully we can see what we missed when it airs!
Posted on April 7, 2008 – 1:06 pm by APRGlen Maxey for UT Chancellor?
After we broke the story that UT Chancellor Mark Yudof had agreed to take the top job at the University of California and would soon make his decision public, a reader commented that former state representative and longtime Democratic activist Glen Maxey should be considered as Yudof’s replacement.
“Maxey is a true leader!” the reader wrote, “”Maxey would do for UT what Yudof never could.”
But isn’t Glen an Aggie? Yes, although he wisely left that out of his campaign bio during his recent Travis County race. Has UT ever had an Aggie as Chancellor? Not that we could find.
Posted on April 7, 2008 – 11:32 am by APRLawyer In New Braunfels Election Contest A State Employee
Republican state lawmaker Nathan Macias of Bulverde lost his primary election last month to former New Braunfels mayor Doug Miller by the narrowest margin — a mere 17 votes after the recount. Macias, elected to his first term in 2006 in a campaign bankrolled by voucher advocate Dr. James Leininger, is now suing to force a new election.
His lawyer? None other than James Trainor (see attached documents), better known as Trey in his taxpayer-funded day job as chief clerk at the House Regulated Industries Committee chaired by Phil King (R-Weatherford), a top lieutenant to Speaker Tom Craddick. Trainor’s boss has often been accused of using his state office for private gain — free Super Bowl tickets, for example.
Posted on April 3, 2008 – 7:39 am by APRDon’t Tell Rick Perry About This
Voters in Wisconsin this week limited their Governor’s ability to freely edit state budget bills by deleting word or phrases “to create entirely new meanings never intended by the original authors.”
Once known as the Vanna White veto, the practice was reduced (but not eliminated) by more than 70 percent of voters in a statewide referendum on Tuesday. Gov. Jim Doyle and his successors will still be allowed to get creative, but they won’t be able to merge whole sentences to shift, for example, $427 million from a transportation bill to education, as apparently happened in 2005.
Posted on April 3, 2008 – 7:35 am by APR