Top Stories
- Sanchez Senate candidacy derided – Bob Cox, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Now this is how you pick a political winner: Find a guy who let a war go off the rails and presided over a torture regime and get him to run for Senate,” [defense writer] Ackerman writes on the Wired’s Danger Room blog.
Perhaps this is why Evan thought Sanchez was about as equally likely to underperform Obama as overperform.
- Calif. ‘Disinvestment Events’ Reach New High; Texas remains top destination for departing companies – Business Relocation Coach
- Texas Soars – Mark Arend, Site Selection
A couple of links you probably won’t find in some MSM roundups. - How to bridge the Texas budget gap – Bill Hammond, Texas Tribune
TAB Chair Hammond’s main proposals: $3B in Rainy Day Fund, $1.5B in deferred payments, $500M from taking tobacco settlement money upfront, $1B in legalizing slot machines and $500M in prison reforms, as well as having Comptroller Combs raise her revenue estimate by $1.5-3B. See more Budget links below.
Budget Battle
- Steve Ogden’s Sweet Spot – R.G. Ratcliffe, BurkaBlog
- Texas College Republicans Target Ogden – Reeve Hamilton, Texas Tribune
- House budget writers OK higher lobbyist fees, suspending sales tax holiday – Robert Garrett, Trail Blazers Blog
- House budget-writers back billions in extra revenue – Peggy Fikac, Chron Texas Politics
- Straus throws cold water on PSF raid – William Lutz, Lone Star Report
- Soda Tax Could Raise $1 Billion Per Biennium – Emily Ramshaw, Texas Tribune
- A Texas-Sized Budget Problem Deferred – to Now – Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune
- School funding system attacked – Gary Scharrer, San Antonio Express-News
- Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility Will Keep Texas the Envy of the Nation – Gov. Rick Perry
Recommended
- The war on truth and women – Patricia Kilday Hart, Houston Chronicle
“In the culture wars, truth – and women – are often collateral damage. And that’s no laughing matter.”
One of the Houston Chronicle’s main political reporters opines that Republicans have declared “war on truth and women.”
- TribLive: Cornyn on Planned Parenthood "Facts" – Evan Smith, Texas Tribune
At this morning’s TribLive conversation, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was unwilling to distance himself from controversial remarks about Planned Parenthood by his colleague, U.S. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona.
Tim Carney adds useful perspective to the numbers Planned Parenthood has provided. The numbers debate is a bit of a diversion from the pro-life argument that there’s no reason for the state to fund the abortion industry directly or indirectly.
- Will Texas Supreme Court revise Open Beaches decision? – Lisa Falkenberg, Houston Chronicle
- Perry asks for federal help in wildfire fight – AP
- More than 1,000 firefighters from 35 states helping battle Texas blazes
- The Sheepish Revolutionary – Daniel Setiawan, Texas Observer
Is this how lefty newsish organizations will try to help Dems pick off Tea Party freshmen?
** Will Texas Supreme Court revise Open Beaches decision? – Lisa Falkenberg, Houston Chronicle **
I held my comments on this one because I suspect there may be some disagreement among the editors (certainly I have property-rights purist friends on the Right who disagree with me) but….
I’m hopeful the Texas Supreme Court will remove itself from this debate in its “do over.”
For many years, the Texas Open Beaches Act has served the state well — and has enjoyed strong support among Texans. If we want to have a big property-rights debate or want to weaken the Open Beaches Act, let’s have that debate via the open political process. That would be preferable to the judicial branch reworking the Open Beaches Act by judicial fiat in response to legal action by a Californian (preferable to me anyway).
Worth breaking out into a blog post? We certainly don’t agree on all of the commentary in the Daily Reading.