I got your grassroots. In fact, if you look in a dictionary on Texas politics under grassroots, you’re most likely to find a picture of Debra Medina because she defines grassroots movements in Texas. Recall that she received 275,000 votes in the 2010 Republican primary running a statewide race on little more than shoe leather and volunteers helping her travel from small town to small town without sleep. I guarantee you that she didn’t have paid lobbyists set up a “hospitality suite” for her or her supporters.
So it was awesome when I saw that the Texas Tribune’s Ross Ramsey had a statement from her on the current move to replace Speaker Joe Straus. Awesome because the race to replace him has been presented to us as a grassroots movement, which it surely is not – and who better to comment on that than the definition of grassroots, Debra Medina?
Some highlights:
- Republicans had lost seats in the Texas House in each session since Tom Craddick was chosen speaker in 2003. With Speaker Straus at the helm, the Republican Party majority grew from 76 seats to the unprecedented super-majority of 101 seats.
- Conservative Texans are asked to ignore the hard fact that more bills to protect the unborn or to fight illegal immigration died on their watch than on Speaker Straus’s short tenure guiding a bitterly divided House.
- Critics have left no stone unturned in their effort to regain power – their tactics have included vicious misinformation and baseless rhetoric in an effort to seize control of the Texas House.
- While many Straus attackers are arguing that political philosophy should be the basis for choosing the Speaker of the House, Robert’s says “The presiding officer…should be chosen principally for the ability to preside.” Henry M. Robert pointed out, “The great lesson for democracies to learn is for the majority to give to the minority a full, free opportunity to present their side of the case, and then for the minority, having failed to win a majority to their views, gracefully to submit and to recognize the action as that of the entire organization, and cheerfully to assist in carrying it out, until they can secure its repeal.
- Remember how in 2003 the conservative base watched as issues like the rights of the unborn were used as bait to elect a majority, only to then use those same social issues as mere window dressing.
- I hope members of the Texas House will keep their head in the game; the job, ladies and gentleman, is fiscally responsible, limited and just government. You’ll be much more likely to achieve that in a House run in a fair and just manner than in one ruled with an iron fist wielded by those whose principal interest has been power and control.
Please take the time to read the entire statement. Unlike the opponents of Speaker Straus, who have relied upon out of state celebrities and out of state bloggers for their endorsements, Texans like Debra Medina support Straus. If you take the time to review the facts, you too will support him. Texas has a bright future under the right leadership.
It takes courage to do what Debra is doing and speaking up. She is already being attacked for this statement – probably the most absurd was the most predictable, that she is a liberal RINO. Calling Debra liberal is as absurd as calling President Obama conservative. But that seems to be all the professional opponents of Speaker Straus know to do – attack without basis or common sense.
As Debra says, she was fed up long before there was a book about it.
Click here to view Debra Medina’s statement on the Speaker’s Race.