The emergence of Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus as a true leader has been like a breath of fresh air to Texas Republicans. Instead of talking about hot-button, marginal issues that divide us, he has outlined a broad vision for the future of Texas. By stepping out front and leading, he has moved the public discourse forward, at least for now. If you listened to Gov. Perry’s state of the state address, you can hear Speaker Straus’ vision in several places.
In doing this, he has taken a lot of heat from “outside” groups, groups that make their living on heated rhetoric and stagnation. This “heat” hasn’t been solely political in nature – much of it has been very personal, targeting his Jewish faith or his family business. Rather than strike back at the personal attacks, he has remained above the fray and become an example of living in a manner that the very people attacking him purport to believe, increasing his stature with the members of the Texas Legislature.
One of the policy areas that he has been attacked on is his refusal to bow down to the outside groups and not turn the Texas House into a miniature version of Washington, D.C. These groups want the House to be divided along party lines, with Republicans controlling all committees. Speaker Straus has refused to go this route and continued the Texas tradition of appointing members of both parties to chair and vice-chair committees. See his list here: Standing Committee Appointments 83rd Legislature.
Obviously, he was immediately attacked by the usual suspects for this. One of my favorite is the attack by The Apostle, head of Raging Elephants, and master of incendiary rhetoric. In an email I received this past Saturday, titled “Traitor Joe” Straus Strikes Again — Committee Assignments, The Apostle complains about the ratio of Republican and Democratic chairs:
The Texas House committee assignments were released this week. Here’s a breakdown of Speaker Straus’ latest betrayal to conservative values. Please keep in mind that the GOP holds a 95 to 55 seat majority in the Texas House of Representatives.
Number of Texas House of Representative committees: 41
Number of Democrats appointed as committee chairs: 14
Number of Democrats appointed as committee vice-chairs: 20
RINOs may argue that it’s “normal” for there to be power sharing. Untrue. Several committees have both the chair and vice-chair occupied by “Republicans”.
Number of committees where Dems are both chair and vice chair: 5
Committees where chair and vice-chair are Democrats:
Human Services
County Affairs
Culture, Recreation, and Tourism
Land and Resources Management
Urban Affairs
I suppose most of us are RINO’s in The Apostle’s eyes, at least those of us that are conservative Republicans but don’t follow in lock step with him. But I like the fact that the Speaker chose to make his committees representative of the people of Texas and didn’t follow the Washington, D.C. model. How could anyone argue that the Washington, D.C. model has been good for the country? I wish that the US Congress would adopt the Texas model and force people to work together to solve problems. Hey, it’s done pretty well for us, hasn’t it?
But the real point of The Apostle’s email isn’t about good policy – it never is. The real point is to raise money for The Apostle:
Action Item: RagingElephants.org is of the mind that Speaker Straus’ house district constituents – and, as many GOP primary voters throughout Texas as we can contact – need to be educated on exactly what this plutocrat has perpetrated through these assignments. It’s our project to robo call House District 121 (Straus’ district) RIGHT NOW! What’s the point of waiting for an election cycle to attempt to inform the district a year after the fact? Let’s hammer this traitor, RIGHT NOW!
Please donate to the robo calling campaign into Speaker Joe Straus’ district, today.
Send him some money and he’ll call harass those poor folks in Speaker Straus’ district sooner rather than later. You’d think The Apostle would learn from the past – last year groups from around Texas went all out to “primary” Speaker Straus and their guy got about 35{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the vote. But again, most of the attacks on Speaker Straus are to raise money for the outside groups, not about good policy.
No, for good policy, you have to turn to Speaker Straus. Even on national issues, such as immigration reform, where our two US Senators should be leading the way. They’ve taken themselves out of the game, choosing to cater to the loudest rather than the broadest. So we turn to Speaker Straus, who urges:
Texas House Speaker Joe Straus recently voiced support for immigration reform measures endorsed by the White House that included a pathway to citizenship for those already in the country illegally.
“I’m hearing a lot less divisive conversations about immigration and a lot more positive discussions about the work force, the economy and trying to keep things on track,” Straus said. “I think you have to go back to the Republican (state) convention in June, before the election. There were a number of us that were understanding of the awkward position that many people in this party were taking.”
Uh, oh, now I’ve done it. I’m really going to be labeled a RINO now. Fact is, I think that Speaker Straus is exactly right and that there must, in some form or another, be an opportunity for those here today illegally to become citizens at some point. I’ll let others worry about the details but sometimes, you just gotta step out and say what you think.
Do I always agree with Speaker Straus? Of course not. I wish that he had appointed higher profile Republicans to the Urban Affairs committee because if we don’t start learning to win the urban areas, we’re going to eventually lose statewide. I wish that he would have appointed someone to head the Public Education committee that was open-minded about vouchers or tax-credits to attend private schools. I wish he would’ve put my rep, Rep. John Davis (129), on the Appropriations committee. I wish a lot of things.
But what I know is that I like Speaker Straus’ independence and leadership. I hope that other Republicans look at what he is doing and get a little backbone themselves.
We won’t win a culture war with Democrats at the lead. I despise Straus and do not believe Republicans are incapable of leading and being wise in all chairs and vice chairs. We have elections for a reason. It’s sad we cannot vote R and get R.
After more than a few years of observing conservative politics, and learning much from that effort, I still lack a concise or consistent definition of the term, “RINO.”
"Speaker Joe Straus setting the agenda for Texas – and moving Republicans forward" – and remember that "forward" is Obama's theme as well as world-wide socialists (and Wisconsin!) – just reminding for whatever it's worth.
LOL, I hear you. Just remember that "forward" wasn't invented by Obama and he doesn't define it. For me, in this case, it means that we are going to address some issues that needed to be addressed years ago – funding the water plan, repairing and building roads, and forcing our education system to improve their results. Speaker Straus has talked about each one of those problems over the past few months.
Thanks for reading! I try to listen in every once in a while to see what you're up to.
Big guy:
I have just found your site… I can see some of good in the way you are suggesting. 2 things cross my mind.
1. It is my understanding that in Washington, the committees are all but impotent, since the O Admin. are pulling the legislations out of a drawer where they have been waiting for the right ‘time’ to pull them out. in the case of the health care, it wasn’t even read. The gun law changes have similarly been ‘pre-cooked’ and waiting for the type of event(say Sandy Hook) should arise.
2. I sincerely believe that although some provision must be made to deal with the illegal entrants to the US. I think it is suicidal to the country to grant citizenship to anyone who broke in… If you remember B J I have always held this opinion. It is based partly on the awful disparity between these folks and all legal entrants. The legal entrants have to have some assurance that they will not be a ‘ward ‘ of the State; They can easily be deported for any felony ( after serving sentence or probation) I was flabbergasted a few days ago when there was news story about some guy being spoken of on the news as being a member of the Russian ( or any other )Mob. Why are they still here?? I think a working visa or a non up grade-able permenant visa.
I fully support Strauss and his moves to actually govern. The overheated, conspiracy-theory Obama-is-Hitler Evil Demon-rats crowd has become a detriment to the GOP. All this chest beating rhetoric may make those who are in the choir enjoy the singing, but it totally turns off moderate voters, who are one over by win-win compromise and thoughtful persuasion. Strauss obviously has a base of center-right support, how exactly does screaming he is a "traitor" win over them? We will start seeing what has played out elsewhere start playing out in Texas, Apostle will succeed in driving Strauss out in the primary and replacing him with a lock-step type much like himself, and then all of Strauss's center right voters will go vote for the Democrat in the general election. Extremist politics simply may attract a nice talk radio audience or web site contributors, but as far as winning general elections, it is a millstone around the GOP's neck.
I think there is Constitutional support for the immediate grant of citizenship to the so-called "Dreamer" kids. The COTUS prohibits "Bills of Attainder" a practice of the English kings where the children of those whose parent's had committed crimes against the crown were 'attainted' for the crimes of their parents, mostly for the purpose of allowing their property to be confiscated by the crown.
To me, these Dreamer kid fall into the same category. When they crossed the border as minor children, it was their parents committing the crime, not them. They are not "illegal immigrants" who have committed a crime, they have become stateless persons. As a society, we then invest money into these children by educating them in our schools and feeding them and providing medical care for them through our welfare systems. These children are my children's friends, they are welcome in my house at my dinner table, they are, other than the fact of their birth, as American as any other kid they bring home, with the same desires and ambitions as any other American kids, in fact, frankly, I see more of the entrepreneurial spirit in them than I do in the natives.
But most important, they are also the cousins, nephews and brothers and sisters of voters. Yes, there are plenty of Hispanic families in Texas that are completely blended on both sides of the border, a fact I think most conservatives in Texas seem to be utterly blind to. They are also naturally conservative. It has been the cruel treatment of the Dreamer issue, especially during the GOP primary where on a national stage the muddled headed morons up there on the stage lambasted Gov. Perry simply because he asked the same question these Hispanic voters do: Don't you people have a heart? Do you really want to ship kids who have no knowledge of the country of Mexico back there, to be kicked out of a bus to a land they have no connection too?
Millions of votes were lost to this idiocy. The GOP can be as hard-line as they wish when it comes to adults who knowing violated our immigration laws, but this moronic insistence on holding children accountable for the crimes of their parents must stop, especially on the local Texas AM radio dial where mouth-foaming idiots drive away any Hispanic voter that happens to tune in from the GOP with their Put Them All On The Trains rhetoric. The Texas GOP needs to support full citizenship for these people if they learn English and graduate high school in this state and stay out of trouble, they have committed no crimes and are on of out potential assets for a good economic future, and should be treated that way.
When people like my Brother give advice on how to attract voters to the GOP, perhaps we should consider that he's a life long Democrat and Liberal who worked for the Howard Dean campaign as was a delegate for Ralph Nader at the TX Democrat Convention, and then mkae our decisions accordingly.
The term “water plan” is chilling, and will continue to be until I see Lubbock and Amarillo going brown.
So far it seems their “planning” focuses on me using exponentially less water, and the wann’a be cities to my north and south continuing with the status quo.
Let capitalism run its course, and the money factor will take care of water rationing. Pols will always pander to the high-density pop counties, encouraging the herd to trample my rights as a multi-generational landowner, of 116 years.
Do we have a count in the Senate?
sounds like a180 to me. don't believe it. jb