Reclaiming the Texas Turf

ANNOUNCING:

2010-02-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

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Roy LaVerne Brooks, former Vice Chair of the Texas Democratic Party, is a candidate for Justice of the Peace, Pct. 6 in Tarrant County. Roy's vision is to partner with the community to help prevent some of the situations which bring people into the JP Court. One of her opponents, a billionaire and C.E.O. of Surety Bank, filed a challenge on all of his opponents seeking to get their names removed from the ballot. Abrams alleges that they did not have enough valid signatures on their petitions. One candidate withdrew rather than to fight legal challenges.

The challenge against Roy LaVerne was reviewed by the Tarrant County Democratic Chair. The ruling was that she had sufficient names on her petition of registered voters in the precinct and her name remains on the ballot. Mr. Abrams was not satisfied with that ruling and threatened to sue the party chair and Roy LaVerne. He filed suit in District Court, asking for an injunction to keep Roy's name off the ballot and asking that she pay all his court costs should she lose. Since all judges in Tarrant County are Republicans, he knew that this Democratic Party election case would be tried in a Republican judge's courtroom.

In addition to Get Out the Vote and other campaign expense, she is now forced to hire an attorney to defend her right to run for office. Unlike her opponent, Roy LaVerne Brooks is not a woman of independent wealth. She is a hard-working Democratic activist, community organizer, who is employed as a hospice counselor.

She has strong name recognition in the district and years of community service/activism. Many believe that Mr. Abrams knows that she will probably beat him if the election is fair and if she is given an equal opportunity to take it to the voters. He prefers to bully and sue his way, to attempt to keep his opponent enmeshed in court, attorney's offices and in last minute fundraising to pay court costs.

This Tea and Fund Raising Appeal in support of Roy LaVerne Brooks is an appeal to stand up for the right of citizens to run for public office.
It is an appeal to stand with her against a man who is trying to bully and harass his way onto the General Election ballot instead of campaigning and letting the voters decide.
This is an appeal to help her defend this case in court and defend the right of all citizens to exercise their civil right to participate in the democratic process which is the foundation of our American system.
This is an appeal to let the Voters' Decide who they want as the Democratic Nominee for Justice of the Peace, Pct. 6.

Contributions of all amounts are welcome. We welcome contributions as small as your weekly coffee money or as large as you can afford. If you can join us Saturday and show Roy LaVerne that you stand with her, we welcome your presence at the tea.

Contributions can be made securely on-line at BROOKS FOR JP6
You are cordially invited by the Tarrant County Democratic Women to attend their monthly meeting immediately preceding the Roy LaVerne Brooks Tea in the same room.

Tarrant County Democratic Women: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Family Life Center St. Christopher's Episcopal Church - 3550 S.W. Loop 820, Fort Worth, TX
Morning Speaker: Bob Ray Sanders
Lunch: $8.00
Afternoon Speaker: Mayor Bill White, Candidate for Governor of Texas

Obama Promotes Small-Business Plan

2010-02-02T15:19:00.000-08:00

By PETER BAKER and SEWELL CHAN - The New York Times - February 2, 2010
NASHUA, N.H. — Intensifying his focus on job creation, President Obama flew here on Tuesday to promote his plan to free up $30 billion in lending for small businesses, even as a leading Senate Republican back in Washington said the proposal would only add to sky-high deficits.

Mr. Obama toured a lighting manufacturer and then headed to a town hall meeting in this politically critical state to tout his lending plan, part of a broader effort to encourage the private sector to step up hiring at a time when unemployment remains stuck at 10 percent despite increasing economic growth.

The lending proposal, which would require Congressional approval, would redirect $30 billion in repaid bailout loans from the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program that rescued the nation’s largest financial institutions. The money would form a new Small Business Lending Fund to provide capital to smaller community banks in hopes of making it easier for them to lend to small businesses.

“These are the small, local banks that work most closely with small business — they’re usually the ones that provide them their first loan, and they watch them grow through good times and bad,” Mr. Obama said here. “The more loans these banks provide to creditworthy small businesses, the better deal we’ll give them on capital from this fund that we’ve set up.”

In addition to the new capital, Mr. Obama proposed in December continuing to waive fees and increase guarantees for loans backed by the Small Business Administration. As part of his State of the Union address last week, he also proposed a new set of tax breaks for small businesses that create new jobs or increase hours and wages on existing ones.

“When you look at what’s causing the problem, the problem is that small community banks might lack capital,” Karen Mills, the head of the Small Business Administration, told reporters aboard Air Force One as the president flew here.

Critics disagreed, saying that community banks had sufficient capital but were not lending as much of it as larger banks because they were having a harder time finding worthy borrowers. And some Republicans said the repaid bailout loans were supposed to be used to bring down the federal budget deficit.

“You’re adding to the debt that our kids are going to have to pay back,” Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, told the White House budget director at a hearing on Tuesday in Washington.

Other Republicans said that the Democratic plans for health care would harm the small businesses the president said he wanted to help by raising their marginal tax rates. “My advice, and this is to the president on down: Listen to what small business is saying,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa. “Back off of the marginal rate tax hikes.”

Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine added that increasing the Medicare payroll tax and personal income taxes for those making more than $250,000 a year would hurt small business owners. “There is no way they’re going to move forward to job creation,” she said. “Who would take the risk?”

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, testifying before lawmakers, said that allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans would affect only a fraction of small businesses. “You could say 2 to 3 percent is a lot of small businesses,” he said. “But it’s only 2 to 3 percent.”

The new lending fund would be available to banks with assets under $10 billion, which, according to the White House, account for 50 percent of all small-business loans even though they represent just 20 percent of all bank assets. The community banks would not be subject to the same terms and rules that applied to the troubled asset program, which many larger financial institutions bristled at. The Independent Community Bankers of America issued a statement of support:

“Every dollar of capital that goes into a community bank can potentially be leveraged eight to 10 times into loans to small businesses. I.C.B.A. will work closely with both Congress and the administration on these and other initiatives that can benefit community banks and Main Street America.”

Mr. Obama toured the Advanced Renewable Energy Company, or ARC Energy, in Nashua, a business that is pioneering a new manufacturing process for highly efficient LED lights. Then he headed for the town hall meeting at Nashua High School North, where both he and Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned in the days leading up to their clash in the New Hampshire primary in January 2008.

New Hampshire has not suffered as much from the nation’s economic troubles as many other states. Its unemployment rate was 6.7 percent in December, lower than the national 10 percent rate.

Several dozen protesters greeted the president and the 1,600 expected guests at the town hall meeting with competing signs. On one corner, some held up signs like “Stop the Spending,” “You’ve Run Out of Our Money” and “Joe Wilson Was Right — You Lie and Lie and Lie.” On another, demonstrators from the other side of the political spectrum held up their own signs, like “Healthcare Reform Now” and “Health Care for All.”

Peter Baker reported from Nashua and Sewell Chan from Washington. Read more in The New York Times

Names Deal Cracks Swiss Bank Secrecy

2009-08-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

By LYNNLEY BROWNING - New York Times - August 19, 2009
In the latest setback to Switzerland’s tradition of banking secrecy, UBS, one of the nation’s largest banks, agreed on Wednesday to turn over information on more than 4,400 American clients suspected by the Internal Revenue Service of using Swiss accounts for tax evasion.

The agreement is likely to unnerve American customers of UBS who do not know if their names will be divulged, and could deter others from opening Swiss accounts in the future.

Whether the deal will change the Swiss banking industry’s culture of secrecy remains to be seen. Smaller Swiss banks say they are confident that they can blunt its effects and continue to profit by finding new, more elaborate ways to protect the privacy of clients. But American authorities have made clear that their pursuit of tax evaders will not stop at UBS.

The 4,450 accounts at UBS that are covered under the new agreement held over $18 billion at one point, according to the I.R.S. commissioner, Douglas Shulman, who called the deal “a major step forward in piercing the veil of bank secrecy.”

UBS will give the names to the Swiss tax authority, which will forward them to the I.R.S. Under a new tax treaty with Switzerland, it could take more than a year for most of the names to be disclosed. In coming weeks the bank will start to notify clients, who can appeal the disclosure in Swiss courts.

It is not clear how UBS will decide which clients to unmask, though American officials have said that they are interested only in the biggest accounts — some containing hundreds of millions of dollars — and accounts that made use of offshore entities and sham corporations.

The agreement is another victory for the I.R.S. and the Justice Department in the long-running case against UBS, which in February paid $780 million and admitted to criminal wrongdoing in selling offshore banking services that enabled tax evasion. Larger Swiss banks like UBS and Credit Suisse have curtailed banking services for wealthy Americans in response to the increased scrutiny.

Some smaller, centuries-old private Swiss banks, however, are stepping up their efforts to attract American money, given the importance of foreign clients to the nation’s financial institutions.

Executives at smaller Swiss banks and trade groups say they are increasingly working with Swiss financial and legal companies to set up offshore entities as a way to shield assets from prying regulatory eyes. They have also been reassuring clients that their accounts will remain confidential.

Sebastian Dovey, a managing partner at Scorpio Partnership, a wealth consulting firm in London, said that “we have not seen huge amounts of movement” of American money out of Swiss banks.

The current penalty for this type of failure to disclose assets is up to 50 percent of the highest annual balance of each account for each of the last three years — an amount that can quickly wipe out an investor and still leave him owing taxes and interest.

Investors who come forward before Sept. 23 face a reduced penalty, of 5 percent to 20 percent, depending in part on whether the wealth was inherited. They will also be hit with the penalty just once, on the highest balance in the accounts during the last six years.

The Justice Department has opened criminal investigations of 150 UBS clients, and is likely to bring more indictments on top of the four it brought in recent months. Only clients who are prosecuted are likely to have their names become public.

The landmark settlement is expected to provide a road map for the I.R.S. as it tries to clamp down on tax evasion by Americans who use offshore accounts.

Smaller Swiss banks are still helping clients hide billions of dollars through complex structures in offshore havens in the Caribbean, Panama, Luxembourg, Singapore and Guernsey in the English Channel. The crackdown is casting a spotlight on the network of lawyers, accountants and advisers who help underpin the Swiss private banking industry by steering clients to such banks.

An American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said this week that the Justice Department was preparing criminal cases against some of the Swiss agents and intermediaries who set up offshore entities for clients and funnel their money to private banks. They take a referral fee in the process — sometimes up to 50 percent, according to a former UBS private banker.

A little-known I.R.S. program, the Offshore Identification Unit, is helping to build a map of this world. It recently began tracking all disclosures of wealthy Americans who, unnerved by the UBS situation, have come forward to declare their assets and account details, often naming the private banks and intermediaries they used.

Julia Werdigier contributed reporting. Read more in the New York Times

Broken links in food-safety chain hid peanut plants' risks

2009-08-02T07:50:00.000-07:00

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY - 4/28/2009
BLAKELY, Ga. — When Food and Drug Administration inspectors visited Peanut Corp. of America's plant here in late 2001, they noticed peanut-processing equipment had been improperly repaired with duct or cellophane tape.
The "widespread" use of tape — some torn — concerned the inspectors because it could harbor insects, was hard to sanitize and could lead to adulterated food.

PCA President Stewart Parnell, who had taken over the plant in February, said it was a good thing they hadn't come a couple months earlier, because they would have seen even more tape then, according to the inspectors' report. Parnell promised to fix the equipment.

But last year — months before a salmonella outbreak was linked to PCA's products from the plant — a private audit found tape still used on equipment and to cover wall seams.

Details matter in food safety, and the story of how PCA came to be held responsible for one of the nation's largest and most costly salmonella outbreaks is all about details — lots of them — unseen or unreported or not acted upon until it was too late.

Federal authorities have begun a criminal investigation of PCA, and the company is bankrupt. Records produced in the FDA's investigation of PCA and in congressional hearings on the outbreak portray a company that not only failed to heed warnings about its deficiencies, but allegedly shipped products that had tested positive for salmonella after retests were negative.

More important, the case reveals a food-safety system in which every key link in the chain of protection failed, food-safety officials and lawmakers say. The outbreak "is a poster child for everything that went wrong" with the USA's food-safety system, says William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner. "Down the line, you can find flaws and failures."

The U.S. food-safety net relies heavily on companies to be good operators. Yet PCA repeatedly failed to fix problems that were brought to its attention, according to regulatory records and documents made public in congressional hearings. Nestlé, for example, twice inspected PCA plants and chose not to take on PCA as a supplier because it didn't meet Nestlé's food-safety standards, according to Nestlé's audit reports in 2002 and 2006.

Regulators never found anything major wrong with PCA's Blakely plant until after the outbreak. Then, the FDA found major problems in sanitation, manufacturing and even plant design.

Unlike Nestlé, other PCA customers, including Kellogg, never audited the Blakely plant themselves. Instead, they selected PCA as a supplier based in part on an inspection by an auditing firm that was paid by PCA and that rates almost every client "excellent" or "superior," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., citing his committee's investigation.

The outbreak resulted in 700 reported illnesses and may have contributed to nine deaths. More than 3,600 products were recalled, costing the food industry hundreds of millions of dollars and signaling to parents that many of their children's favorites — peanut crackers, cookies, ice cream — could be dangerous.

The outbreak also caused heartbreak. One family alleges it stole a mother and a Christmas from them. Shirley Almer, a 72-year-old cancer survivor, died Dec. 21 after eating salmonella-tainted PCA peanut butter in an elder-care facility, her son Jeffrey testified to Congress.

"Shirley Almer loved this country but was terribly let down by a broken and ineffective food system," he said at the congressional hearing.

The industry watchers

PCA got more than one warning from other companies that its Blakely plant had problems.

•Deibel Labs, which ran more than 1,600 salmonella tests for PCA's Blakely plant from 2004 through 2008, found almost 6% positive. It was so many that Deibel sent PCA's samples to a separate part of its Chicago lab to lessen chances that they'd contaminate other products, Charles Deibel, the firm's president, said in an interview.

For roasted products such as peanuts, a positive rate above 1 in 10,000 would be high, Deibel said. Proper roasting kills salmonella with heat. PCA never asked Deibel to look into the issue, Deibel said.

•Another lab hired by PCA, JLA, based in Georgia, told PCA in 2006 that the Blakely plant hadn't adequately documented that its roasting killed salmonella, according to a letter from JLA to PCA that congressional investigators released. After the outbreak, the FDA noted the same deficiency in its 2009 report.

•Nestlé audited the Blakely plant in 2002 and rejected it as a supplier. Nestlé's audit report said the plant needed a "better understanding of the concept of deep cleaning" and failed to adequately separate unroasted raw peanuts from roasted ones. Having them in the same area could allow bacteria on raw nuts to contaminate roasted ones, a risk known as cross-contamination.

The plant wasn't even close to Nestlé's standards, auditor Richard Hutson said in an interview. Hutson, who now heads quality assurance for several Nestlé divisions, said he shared his concerns with PCA officials at the time, but "they didn't pursue it" further with Nestlé, he says.

After the outbreak, the FDA found problems at the Blakely plant that were similar to those found by Nestlé, including inadequate cleaning and storing of raw and roasted peanuts too close together.

Nestlé also rejected PCA's Texas plant in 2006.

Neither Deibel, JLA nor Nestlé shared their findings with anyone other than PCA, which is common industry practice. Congressional lawmakers don't fault companies for not sharing proprietary data, but some now say that foodmakers' microbiological test results should be reported to regulators.

Had the FDA seen PCA's salmonella test results, it might have detected a problem sooner, said Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's head of its food-safety center, at a congressional hearing in February.

That a lab detected salmonella in PCA products but reported it only to PCA is a practice that "we can't afford to have in our food-safety system," said Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, at the same hearing.

The regulators

The issues noted by Nestlé and JLA, and the frequent salmonella positives found by Deibel, went undetected by regulators. That's part of what Stupak calls a "total systemic breakdown" of the U.S. food-safety system.

The FDA didn't inspect the Blakely plant itself, after its 2001 check, until the outbreak. That's not unusual. The agency's inspection staff is so strapped, it inspects food facilities an average of once every five to 10 years unless they're deemed high risk, which peanut processors were not.

About half the FDA's food inspections are done by state inspectors, whose departments are paid by the FDA to do that work.

After the outbreak, and a 13-day inspection of the Blakely plant in January, the FDA delivered a scathing report. It said the plant didn't clean up after finding salmonella, had poor controls to prevent contamination and had poor design to prevent roof leaks.

Most important, the FDA discovered that PCA shipped products that had tested positive for salmonella, then negative on a retest. Shipping such product is "universally condemned," the FDA's Sundlof testified to Congress, because salmonella can be missed in tests. Products should be destroyed after one positive result, regulators say.

But nine inspections of the Blakely plant — by Georgia agricultural inspectors in 2006, 2007 and 2008 — found only minor issues, many of which were quickly fixed, said Oscar Garrison, Georgia assistant Agriculture commissioner. Two of the checks were done for the FDA.

Garrison defends the state inspections as a "snapshot in time." Even rigorous inspections wouldn't always detect problems if a processor is intent on "breaking the law," he said.

But Stupak, who held two hearings on the outbreak, said the FDA's 2009 inspection report notes numerous violations of good manufacturing practices that weren't found by the state and which FDA officials later testified should have been caught.

The PCA case has cast a spotlight on the rigor of state inspections done for the FDA. Some states do a good job; some don't, Hubbard said. The FDA knows it needs to raise standards, said Michael Taylor, food-safety expert at George Washington University.

"There's a basic breakdown when an FDA-contracted inspection doesn't detect problems that seem so obvious," Taylor said.

PCA, which closed its three plants after the outbreak, has disputed some of the FDA's assertions. Parnell, who shares PCA's ownership with an investor group, worked at its Virginia headquarters. He and other former PCA managers refused to comment.

The plant in Blakely used to employ 50 but now sits deserted. Its paint is faded and chipped, as if a symbol of the deficiencies the FDA said were inside.

The customers

When the outbreak hit, PCA supplied 2.5% of the nation's peanut products, including peanut butter sold to institutions and paste and meal used in foods made by hundreds of companies.

To win customers, Parnell "extolled" the fact that an auditor, AIB International, had rated the plant as "superior," said King Nut CEO Martin Kanan at a congressional hearing. King Nut sold peanut butter under its name that was made by PCA.

That rating also satisfied Kellogg, which began buying PCA's peanut paste for sandwich crackers in 2007. Kellogg CEO David Mackay testified at a congressional hearing in March that PCA was a "dishonest supplier" and that Kellogg had done "everything we could" to ensure safety.

PCA had been audited by AIB, "the most commonly used auditor in the U.S.," Mackay said. PCA had verified that it had fixed issues raised in the first audit in 2006, Kellogg says. Kellogg visited the plant but didn't audit. Kellogg also got certificates from PCA — issued by private labs paid by PCA — saying the product was salmonella-free, Kellogg says.

But AIB's rating of PCA has since come under attack, along with the common practice of foodmakers paying for their own audits.

Stupak said congressional investigators found that AIB gives 98% of companies a "superior" or "excellent" rating. He also said that e-mails between AIB and PCA point to a relationship that's too cozy to ensure a tough audit.

"You lucky guy. I am your AIB auditor," AIB's Eugene Hatfield wrote PCA on Dec. 22, says an e-mail released by Stupak's committee.

In 2008, PCA had more than a month's warning before its AIB audit. Former PCA employees, sanitation director Anne Bristow and Bobby Mallard, said in interviews that the plant was deep-cleaned beforehand.

"Five days later, it would be back to normal," said Mallard, who ran a peanut-roasting line. "It was dirty."

The last AIB audit, done on one day in March 2008, found few problems. "Excellent cooperation was received by the writer," wrote Hatfield in the report. "On some occasions, the items were immediately corrected."

AIB refused an interview request but defends its audits on its website. It says Hatfield had inspected 200 peanut facilities in his career and did a PCA check that was so detailed he found beetles behind duct tape.
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AIB also says the Blakely plant ran for months without a manager in mid-2008, providing ample time for it to deteriorate between AIB's audit and the FDA's January 2009 inspection.

AIB also draws criticism from a former food-industry official. Its audit of PCA was "superficial," said Jim Lugg, former food-safety chief for bagged salad maker Fresh Express, who reviewed AIB's audit of PCA at USA TODAY's request.

One example of "shallow treatment of a big issue," Lugg says, is that the audit notes that PCA had a written program to evaluate suppliers and had an approved list. But AIB did no further checking of the suppliers. Years ago, Fresh Express stopped using AIB audits because it found them inadequate, he adds.

Lugg also questions why another audit firm ranked the PCA plant so high even though the auditor noted many problems.

In April 2008, NSF Cook & Thurber inspected the Blakely plant for a client, which it says wasn't PCA. The audit found so many "minor" deficiencies at the plant — including use of tape — that the plant ranked in the bottom 6% of audits done by NSF last year, NSF said in a statement, adding that it stood "100% behind" the audit.

Still, NSF gave the plant an "opportunity for improvement" rating on food safety and quality, just below the "acceptable-excellent" rating. Lugg says that rating appears too high, given the concerns noted in the audit, including criticisms of the plant's condition, sanitation and pest control.

"The whole idea (of third-party audits) isn't working," says former FDA official Hubbard. "The inspectors are either telling the client what they want to hear, or they're doing a perfunctory audit, or they're poorly trained."

Kellogg, while defending its oversight of PCA, now says it will do its own inspections of high-risk suppliers. It spent less than $20 million on PCA products. Its cracker recall will cost up to $70 million, Mackay testified.

Many companies need to do more due diligence on suppliers, food-safety experts say. "There needs to be a revolution in the supply chain," says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety.

The end result

Since the recall, Parnell has been portrayed by congressional lawmakers as a man most concerned with getting product out the door.

Former employees also say too little was spent on the Blakely plant. "It was production, production, production," says Mallard. "Then clean for 15 minutes."

"I'd tell Stewart that this needs to be changed right away," Bristow says. "He'd say, 'We'll get on it.' It wasn't done."

The plant's roof leaked so badly, "It rained in the plant," says Teresa Spencer. Rainwater can carry salmonella from bird droppings. The roof leaked even after PCA fixed it, Mallard says.

PCA also left key jobs open. In addition to losing its plant manager in 2008, it lacked a quality manager for at least four months, NSF's audit says.

Parnell's side remains untold. At a congressional hearing in February, he invoked his constitutional right not to testify. His lawyer also refused comment for this story, citing the criminal probe, as did Parnell's daughter, who did PCA's books.

Jeffrey Almer and his sisters sat behind Parnell in the hearing room.

Their mother, Shirley, a woman who dragged her grown sons onto the dance floor, had entered a Minnesota rest home after Thanksgiving to recover from a urinary tract infection. The day before her expected release, her family was told she had hours to live. Her mother had lived to be 101.

When Parnell refused to testify, Jeffrey, 46, a finance employee for Best Buy, says he felt rage. It was directed at Parnell but also at the food-safety system that he says failed his mother.

"My mom should be here today," he testified.

Contributing: Tom Ankner
Read more in US News

Todd Staples - Campaigning of food safety - Really?

2009-07-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

By Vince Leibowitz - Capitol Annex

Paul Burka "stirs up a hornets nest"

2009-07-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - July 4, 2009

Texas Monthly writer Paul Burka wrote that he didn't think Ronnie Earle can win a Democratic Primary or get cross-over votes. His comments drew immediate responses. He posted his "opinion" at 11:12 a.m. July 3rd. By 11:56 a.m. July 4th, 26 people had responded. Several were from the same person. Those in disagreement with Burka cite Ronnie Earle's long record and passion for ethics.

We recommend you read the thread and add your own comments: Texas Monthly

I do not have permission to post all of the comments, but am including mine and Lauri Wiss's:

July 4th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Faith Chatham says:
Ronnie Earle excites the Democratic base more than any name which has been floated for Governor to date. Dirty dog Democratic activists who have been considering sitting this one out if the only choices on the table are GWB’s partner and Kinkey, are organizing and leading the DRAFT RONNIE EARLE for GOVERNOR campaign. He appeals to citizens, both Democratic and Republican and Independent who are disgusted with the rob, pillage, and charge the people more for less while lining the special interests pockets mentality of Austin. The realities of the current administration in Austin, and the similarity between many Democratic and Republican legislators’ lack of concern for the good of the people of this state (unless they are their personal benefactors) has united the far left and the far right on many basic issues.
The primary issues which most Texans are speaking with one voice are the strengths of Ronnie Earle. Texans want fairness. What is good for one should be good for all. There should not be one set of rules for the elite and another for the rest of us. Ronnie Earle has been consistent. From his days as a Legislator in the “Dirty Dozen” through this very minute, he has always applied the law equally to all. He even filed against himself when he discovered he’s failed to file paperwork!
He’ll win the Democratic primary if he declares and he’ll be the strongest Democratic candidate we can field against any deep-pocketed Republican in this state.
Mr. Burka, you are dead wrong on this one. Watch Ronnie Earle run and watch Ronnie Earle win!

July 4th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Lauri Wiss says:
Well, Trimpack did occur on Perry’s watch with people on his staff. Letting Delay use staff and equipment from the Governor’s office will come back to haunt him.
Abbot allowed the problems with youth and prison issues to continue until 2008 when it was called to his attention in memos in 2002.
The TTC plans coming from the Governor’s Office began in 2002. The AG should not have had to declare in 2009 that it was unconstitutional,Perry should have known this in 2002. Don’t underestimate the TTC on voters and Perry’s initiative on this.
College education has skyrocketed again, Perry had input on those trustees who decided to deregulate tuition. The Call Center for Human Services was private corporation. Would it have worked it it had been done by employees currently employed by the state?
Unemploymenht is at an all time high here in the state. That is another group of people who will have many memories of not receiving their federal 13 week extensions for several months due tostate “computer problems” when they are already receiving state unemployment checks?
Tell me again why you think there won’t be Republican crossover?
Ronnie Earle stood up for keeping the process as ethical as possible, especially with budget cuts being the response to his being effective.
KBH will have a higher bar to climb if Ronnie Earle is her opponont. Just whaling away at Perry will not tell us what she will be doing for the state.

Ronnie Earle has formed a campaign committee

2009-07-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

He has not declared for what office.
Help convince Ronnie Earle to run for Governor.
Take poll on Capitol Inside

More: Why We Need Ronnie Earle as Governor of Texas

2009-07-03T06:19:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - July 3, 2009

Until the deadline for filing for Governor, this site will post updates to "Why We Need Ronnie Earle for Governor." You can add your endorsement by responding to the post using the Comment. Comments are moderated and if on topic and not offensive to Faith Chatham, will be posted usually within 24 hours. Earlier endorsements are farther down on this blog.

Faith Chatham on Facebook: Why We Need Ronnie Earle - July 2, 2009

Ronnie Earle has a strong sense of what government should do and what those in office should not do. This basic line in the sand of decency has been absent in Austin for a very long time. As a Texas Legislator and member of the "Dirty Dozen", he stood-up against corruption in political office. As District Attorney in the capitol of Texas, he has prosecuted the powerful when there were legal grounds to justify those cases. He is not known for doing the "politically expedient thing" or for acting for his own enrichment.

Of all the potential names I've heard floated for Governor, his is the only one which excites me. With Earle, folks know where he stands. He understands the Constitution of Texas and the U.S. Constitution. Frequently when we watch the actions and hear the words of our current and recent Governors, it is difficult to think they have even read the documents.

Earle will be a step in the right direction toward instillng confidence in Texas government.

Mark Twain said "No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. - Mark Twain (1866)"

The Governor of Texas has ripped off the people far too long. We've survived GWB using the office merely as a campaign planning session for the Presidency and his college roommate using it to court European and Australian business interests while neglecting those at home.

I bet Earle is one governor who would expect a more modest expenditure for a temporary residence than has been laid out for Governor Perry.

I think it is time for Texas to elect a governor who will truly serve the people of this state instead of concentrating on transferring public infrastructure into the hands of his international corporate buddies.

I'm been planning on sleeping through the 2010 election cycle but if Ronnie Earle declares for Governor, I'll do what I can to help people understand why we need him as Governor.--

Harriet Irby on Facebook July 2, 2009:

Mr.Earle is ferociously honest. What a refreshing change!

Jim Hightower | The Fourth of July Is a Celebration of Agitation

2009-07-02T17:59:00.001-07:00

Jim Hightower | The Fourth of July Is a Celebration of Agitation

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Draft Ronnie Earle

2009-07-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - July 1, 2009

McBlogger wrote:

One of the reasons I like Earle is the fire and passion he brings to everything he does. He's the kind of candidate who won't let Republicans in this state know that it's OK for them to vote for a Democrat, he's the kind of man who can convince them the Republicans are full of shit, with a smile on his face and a beer in his hand. Read more on mcblogger.com

Texas Needs You Ronnie Earl

Vince Leibowitz wrote on Capitol Annex:

The next big question folks are probably asking is, “Why Ronnie Earle?” I think that the answers are pretty obvious, but I’ll elaborate.

Ronnie Earle is a classic progressive, good-government Democrat with the capability to inspire people and, ultimately, reach across party lines and actually win in places in this state Democrats haven’t won in a while.

Last year, I contacted then-DA Earle about participating in a panel that we were assembling for Netroots Nation called “Blogs As The Ethics Watchdog.” We wanted him to participate because we thought he’d have a unique perspective on some of the issues bloggers in Texas had covered since, after all, his office investigated them. Shortly after that, I got the opportunity to hear him speak at a fundraiser in East Texas (if memory serves, I even got to introduce him, because I’d suggested him as a speaker). I couldn’t quote you chapter and verse of his speech, but it was inspiring and, through that speech, Ronnie Earle articulated (perhaps without even realizing it) a vision for Texas that is different from the kind of thing you typically hear gubernatorial candidates talk about. Given that he wasn’t a candidate for anything at that point, it was particularly impressive.

Ronnie Earle talked about a vision for a Texas that is proactive and not reactive when it comes to public policy areas like crime and education. He talked about a Texas where the interests of children and the elderly come first, and not the interests of big business or big donors. He even set forth a few ways Democrats could accomplish those things, but I won’t try to recount them today.

In July of last year, I got to hear Ronnie Earle speak again in a more casual atmosphere at the Netroots Nation panel. By that time (and even when he spoke at the spring fundraiser), he had been mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office. As I listened to some of what he said in the Netroots Nation panel, though, and recalled the earlier speech I heard, I decided that if Ronnie Earle ever ran for statewide office, he was a candidate I would support.

Since he hasn’t made up his mind yet, and since I know a number of people who feel the same way I do, now is the time to offer a little encouragement–hence DraftRonnie.com.

Just as is noted on the draft site, Texas needs Ronnie Earle right now. Texas Democrats really need Ronnie Earle right now.

MORE ABOUT RONNIE EARLE:
The Impact Players: The Earle of Democracy by Mark Donald, Texas Lawyer

..He half-expected these and more after his two-year investigation into alleged violations of Texas campaign finance laws led to 32 indictments spread among three political associates of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and eight corporations.

“There is a basic rule that the Mafia follows,” Earle says. “And it is used as a template by most politicians that I have investigated: Deny the allegation and attack the allegator.”

Returned on Sept. 26, the indictments seem fairly straightforward. Section 253.094 of the Texas Election Code prohibits corporations and labor unions from making political contributions or expenditures and 253.003 makes it a crime to accept them. Each offense is punishable as a third-degree felony, although the statute has been interpreted to exempt corporate money spent on administrative expenses such as rent and utilities.

The indictments accuse John Colyandro and Warren Robold, who were affiliated with Texans for a Republican Majority [TRMPAC], and eight of the PAC’s corporate donors of accepting or making banned corporate contributions. James Ellis, who was also associated with TRMPAC, and Colyandro have also been indicted for money laundering, a first-degree felony. Each of the defendants has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The factual allegations surrounding the investigation and indictments, however, are so dense, interconnected and politically charged, they make Republicans look like Machiavellian power mongers and Democrats look like paranoid conspiracy theorists.

According to press accounts from the Texas Observer to the New York Times, Tom DeLay sought to increase his Republican majority in Congress by increasing the number of representatives from the Texas congressional delegation. “I’m the majority leader and I want more seats,” he told the Washington Post.

If Republicans could gain a majority of seats in the Texas House in the 2002 election, they could elect a DeLay-friendly speaker [Tom Craddick, R-Midland] who could then help push through a DeLay-engineered redistricting plan, which would then increase the size of the Texas delegation in Congress — which is what happened.

Spotlight on Prosecutor

By Ralph Blumenthal, The New York Times, October 11, 2004

...On Sept. 21, after nearly two years of investigation, the latest of three successive grand juries indicted three top fund-raisers and eight corporate givers for contributions to the political action committee of Texans for a Republican Majority, a group that is linked to Mr. DeLay, of the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, and Tom Craddick of Midland, a fellow Republican who is speaker of the Texas House. The charge is funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit corporate money to Republican statehouse candidates in 2002.

The candidates’ victories set off a redistricting effort to solidify Republican control of Congress in 2004. “Clearly corporate money was used in political campaigns, and that’s against the law,” Mr. Earle said.

The Texas Association of Business, another group involved in the inquiry, boasted in a 2002 newsletter that it “blew the doors off the Nov. 5 general election using an unprecedented show of muscle that featured political contributions and a massive voter education drive.”

Mr. Earle said, “Nobody can just violate Texas law, brag about it and then get away with it.”

He was non-partisan in prosecuting elected officials who misused their office for personal gain:

Mr. Earle has been recognized as an innovator for working, sometimes with his wife, Twila, to mobilize communities to fight crime. “Mostly, I got tired of waiting for something terrible to happen before I could do anything,” Mr. Earle told a 2002 conference on drugs at Rice University.

Meanwhile, he racked up some other prominent prosecutions of Democrats, winning a guilty plea for misuse of office against State Treasurer Warren G. Harding in 1982; a guilty plea on financial disclosure violations from the Texas House speaker, Gib Lewis, in 1992; and various convictions against state legislators of both parties. But he lost a felony bribery case against Attorney General Jim Maddox, a Democrat, acquitted in 1985.

He has even prosecuted himself:

Among those he successfully prosecuted was himself. As he announced in a news release on March 14, 1983: “I have discovered that my officeholder campaign finance reports were not filed for 1981 and 1982.” He filed them belatedly, he said, apologizing to his constituents for the misdemeanor and adding: “I have today caused a complaint to be filed against me in this matter and this afternoon I expect to pay a fine assessed by the court.” It came to $212, including court costs.

(By Ralph Blumenthal, The New York Times, October 11, 2004)

He focuses on Crime Prevention:
Guarding Death’s Door
By John Cloud, Time Magazine, July 14, 2003

Earle’s capital locale has extended his visibility beyond the county. He was one of the first prosecutors in Texas to create a victim-assistance program, in 1979; later he helped write a state law requiring every D.A. to open an office to connect crime victims with social services. He helped start Austin’s Children’s Advocacy Center, which works with abused kids, and a family-justice division of the D.A.’s office, which prosecutes those accused of domestic violence and helps their families get back to normal. A lot of prosecutors view such do-gooderism as a waste of time, preferring to devote themselves to cases guaranteed to go Live at 5. Earle, by contrast, rarely appears in court. He would rather attend, as he did recently, a conference in a motel ballroom off Highway 35 to talk about how to fight substance abuse. Predictably, those in the movement for community justice, which tries to combat the sources of crime as well as punish it, swoon over him. “He has a track record going back years of working toward crime prevention by working in the community,” says Catherine Coles, a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who studied Earle’s office in the ’90s.

...“At first, I thought justice was vengeance,” he says, settling back into the chair in his second-floor office, which is not far from the pink-granite capitol. “D.A.s feel they have to give voice to the anguish that victims feel. And I tell you, that’s a righteous anger. You look at these guys”–the killers, he means–”and some of them are monsters, just awful.” Many prosecutors don’t concern themselves with why they become awful, but Earle has a theory: “People learn to act through what I call the ethics infrastructure, that network of mommas and daddies and aunts and uncles and teachers and preachers”–he continues the list for some time–”who all teach us how to act. And that infrastructure has atrophied. When I was growing up”–Earle is 61 and was raised outside Fort Worth–”my mother had seven sisters and a brother. My dad had six siblings. So I had all these aunts and uncles plus my mother and father, and that structure is powerful. People don’t have that now. And nobody is taking care of the children.

“So it’s almost as if most of the people we send to death row, it’s like we can say, ‘Look what we made you do.’ Most of them–if they had someone who had intervened in their life at an appropriate point, this would not have happened. And that’s sad to realize. That doesn’t necessarily make you squeamish about using the death penalty, but it does make you more discerning about it.”

But Earle has always been a little weird. A close observer of Texas politics e-mailed this description of him: “Thoughtful. Conspiratorial. Crusader. Half-whacked. Smart. Insightful. Wise. Nuts.” Well, not nuts. But most of it has a kernel of truth. Earle’s reputation as conspiratorial derives largely from the workings of his office’s public-integrity unit, a watchdog office that prosecutes those (including elected officials) who commit crimes in the course of their dealings with the state. Earle’s job, in other words, is to root out conspiracies.

Earle is often suspected of bringing partisan cases on behalf of fellow Democrats. And while he has prosecuted 12 Democrats and only three Republicans, his biggest embarrassment came in 1994, after U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a prominent Republican, was indicted for allegedly using state employees to do political tasks. Earle amassed thousands of documents as evidence, and many thought the new Senator could lose her job. But at a pretrial hearing, the judge and Earle clashed over the admissibility of the documents; fearing he would lose, Earle declined to present a case. Hutchison was quickly acquitted, and Earle was portrayed as a fool. Republicans have never quite forgiven him.

...Like most other prosecutors, Earle often sees himself as an advocate–for his constituents, for the state, for crime victims. Because of their role, prosecutors tend to be portrayed in popular culture as modern-day knights. But Earle has come to prefer another metaphor. “I’m the gatekeeper,” he says. “I don’t dare ask my boss, the public, to sit in judgment of somebody that I don’t think deserves to die. That’s why they elect me, to exercise that judgment and not bother them.” Buried in that philosophy is something radical–the notion that the jury system, as it’s currently constructed, can’t be trusted to send only the guilty to death row. Most prosecutors wouldn’t embrace that philosophy, which is why it may take an Earle, not a knight, to slay the demon of error.

In Earle's own words:
Community Restorative Justice and the Future of Democracy

By Ronnie Earle, May 2000
Justice in our culture has many meanings, but mostly it has become a hero word. We have grown accustomed to thinking of it as vengeance, or payback, and usually as one act, as in the execution of a criminal or the movie killing of a bad guy.

Justice in its original contemplation was neither so crude nor so simple. It was a sense of balance, of completeness, of harmony and fairness. It involved the daily, mundane work of building community by taking care of the relationships upon which community is based. It was not as simple as an immediate release of anger; it was certainly more meaningful. The Hebrew word Shalom comes closest to describing this sense of justice as a general sort of okay-ness that was shared in and contributed to by everyone in the community.

...
Justice is thus an organic product of the community’s institutions, and that is what controls behavior, not the law. The law historically just caught those few who fell through the cracks in the ethics infrastructure; it was never designed to be a substitute for what former Travis County, Texas Sheriff Doyne Bailey once referred to as the institutions of love. It is upon that structure and the connections within it that justice depends.

The community restorative justice movement is focused on connecting people both in and out of government. It is an effort to use the opportunities for intervention provided by crime and related social dysfunction as tools to begin the process of rebuilding the social capital upon which both community and justice are based. It is a spontaneous, grassroots effort to discharge what Dan Van Ness says is the moral responsibility of community to create peace. It seeks to reweave the fabric of community by involving the public in its own protection.

read more

He is not afraid to think outside the box:

The focus of the criminal justice system has been on the trees—response time, arrest rates, conviction rates, length of sentence, crime rates, recidivism rates, and so on. The forest—the place of that system in the culture and its role in values clarification and reinforcement—has seldom even been noticed, except by the popular entertainment media. Community restorative justice asks us to see and care about both the forest and the trees.

Community restorative justice is not easy to understand, much less to practice, except for members of the lay public. They have only to learn a new way. They are not burdened as are criminal justice professionals with the necessity of first unlearning the old; for the pros it is like having to drive the train while trying to build a new railroad without being sure of the destination.

Community restorative justice operates at two levels. First, it asks the agencies that have traditionally operated separately and independently of each other to work together, sharing power and authority with each other. That is hard, especially given the ubiquity of turf wars in social and criminal justice.

Where is USA Tax Money Going?

2009-06-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Link shows spending of U.S. Government.

Why Rehash Things That Went Wrong Last Election Cycle?

2009-06-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - June 1, 2009
It's all about process. Even though we are several hundred years old, the American System is a "work in progress." We're still evolving, fine-tuning, and hopefully getting better. Growth for a nation (or political party) is sometimes a jagged path rather than a straight line. Review and petition, discussion and revolt all play their part in refining the political process. We didn't learn to hold the tea cup correctly by just picking one up. We don't learn to conduct flawless elections by merely signing up to run as election judge! The Democratic Primary of 2008 showed people in Texas that there is room for much improvement beyond the mere electronics of voting machines.

It isn't about Obama or Hillary. It isn't about Democrat or Republican. It is important, I think, to examine what occurred in that election cycle and to evaluate what really went off track. We need to know where it departed from reflecting the intent of the voters in order to know where to work, petition, influence, and demand that it is improved for the next race.

It is also important to see what worked right and be thankful and appreciative to the millions of people who did their part. That includes people who disagreed with each other, voted for different candidates, worked for opposing campaigns, and donated/volunteered on all sides. Process includes everybody.

The candidate who is declared the winner of any election should be the one selected by the majority of the voters. The process for recording and reporting votes should be as flawless as it is humanly possible to make. The percentages reported up each step of the party selection process should mesh with the percentages of votes cast per candidate from the bottom to the top. (See Texas Presidential Voting Results)

It is important for those who market political candidates to understand that the perceptions of the people determine how folks vote and participate in the process. In Texas, no Democrat won any statewide office during an election cycle in which many thought the Democrats had "the" advantage. (See Texas Statewide '08 Voting Results)

It is beneficial for people who care about issues and causes to understand the events, behaviors, grassroots synergy, campaign strategies which worked, backfired or fizzled and their impact on voters' behavior. Those things all carry through and impact legislation.

Legislation authorizes or prohibits policies which create, fund, or implement infrastructure, human services, education, environmental protection, business development, property protection, transportation, etc.

One governor can veto legislation passed by every member of both houses! One Lt. Governor in Texas can stall legislation favored by the majority of the Senate. It is all a connected link and streams back to the citizen's perception of the process and their participation at the voting booth. One underfunded dark-horse candidate who receives only a thin slice of the votes can bring issues to the minds of politicians and voters which make their way into planks of major candidates and get passed in legislation.

It is important for people to know that their preference is registered accurately or we stop participating. (See Texas Voter Registration and Voter Turnout)

Those who market candidates need to understand the relationship between public perception and voter participation. When marketing overshadows democratic process, and people realize that their votes do not determine the party's nominee or ultimate winner of the seat, there are reactions. The PUMA movement in the Democratic Party in 2008 is a good example. It has crossed party lines, uniting women and causing both parties to examine the united power of female voters.

Jim Mattox's last speech was testimony at the West Committee on Texas-Two Step. Mattox told Democrats what needs to be changed for Democrats to win again in Texas.

Evaluation and reflection are tools which help us keep the process honest. It is how we are able to take that jagged line and straighten it out again, so that we can truly reflect what many think America is all about.

There were counties in Texas where voter participation exceeded 30%. There were others where it was less than 2%. After the balloons and confetti of election night have settled and the last acceptance or congratulatory/ concession telephone call has been made, it is beneficial for everyone for some to step back and look at the numbers, plug in the events and evaluate the message, examine the irregularities in the voting process and analyze the election cycle as a process. See Change the Caucus System - End the Texas Two-Step) It is hard to accurately plug in values for "likeable" or "unlikeable" and personality factors. However, it is possible to look at turn-out, party organization, campaign resources per voting area, and more importantly, party rules, state election law, and chaos in various parts of the process which created irregularities.

We can learn to avoid problems by experiencing them. The primary of '08 can be utilized as a learning experience for all of us. Democrats, Republicans, PUMAs, Obamabites, and Independents can all look at that election and identify places we need to improve. Participating lets us work with others to do it better next time.

I may not agree with you. You may detest everything I usually stand for. However, I will fight to the death for your right to have your opinion accurately recorded and reported at the voting booth. To me, the precept of one person one vote and that vote counted accurately without harassment or discrimination is the American Ideal.

Bury the Trans-Texas Corridor

2009-05-23T08:37:00.000-07:00

By David Van Os, May 23, 2009
For all of you Texas patriots who have upraised your voices for the last three years against Slick Rick Perry's plans to sell off our public highway system to private interests so they can stuff their bloated pocketbooks with billions of dollars in predatory toll fees while devastating hundreds of thousands of acres of good Texas earth in massive land grabs - IT HAS COME DOWN TO THE NEXT FOUR DAYS.

The 2009 legislative session is nearing its end. The Texas Department of Transportation is facing legislative sunset this year. Various bills have passed one or the other of the two Texas legislative chambers, the Senate and the House, to reauthorize TXDOT's existence under different competing sets of values. Which will it be - democracy of the people, or despotism of the greedy?
In some of the pending versions of transportation legislation, the public will would finally be honored with the long-sought elimination of the Trans-Texas Corridor and the democratization of the Texas Transportation Commission. I want to take this opportunity to express special commendation for Rep. David Leibowitz, whose labors against the toll-building robber barons and the anti-democratic TXDOT bureaucrats are on the verge of success with the potential final enactment of his bills into law.

In other versions of transportation legislation, the use of private contracts to build and operate massive toll roads, particularly TTC-69 through the heart of East Texas, would be re-authorized. In one particularly ugly bit of backroom chicanery, a deal is already made to grant the building and operation of TTC-69 to a private company from Spain. We have been fighting the same spectre for years now, but as we know, the greedy don't give up easy.

It appears probable that the competing value systems will face off in House-Senate conference committee action on Tuesday, May 26. Long hours, days, and years of hard work for many thousands of grassroots Texans who have been fighting for democracy in Texas transportation planning may come down to making sure the legislators hear the voice of the people loudly and clearly over the next four days.

The TXDOT reauthorization bill is HB 300. The bad bills that the people have to defeat to nail the coffin shut on the Trans-Texas Corridor are SB 17 and SB 404. The latter bills would re-authorize CDAs (comprehensive development agreements); in other words, sell-out deals to put billions of dollars in toll fees into private pockets for operating toll roads that the people of Texas do not want.

If you want to do your part to make sure the people are finally rewarded with victory in this fight, CALL your Texas House Representative and your Texas Senator today through the Capitol switchboard at (512) 463-4630 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tell your Representative and your Senator, or their staffs, you are against SB 17 and SB 404 and anything else that allows comprehensive development agreements in highway construction. Tell them you expect them to GET RID of the Trans-Texas Corridor for good and to GET RID of private toll road development for good. Tell them you want a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.

We the People have been speaking for a long time. We want democracy, not corporate-governmental oligarchy. Now let's bear down. Two years ago some of the legislators who had pledged to support the people's will wavered at the finish line. This time we can't let them waver. Let them hear our voices in this moment of truth. NO private contracts for toll roads, NO Trans-Texas Corridor, NO comprehensive development agreements, and YES to a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
David Van Os

Are Wall Street speculators driving up gasoline prices?

2009-05-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

By Kevin G. Hall - McClatchy Newspapers - May 22, 2009
WASHINGTON — Oil and gasoline prices are rising fast as Memorial Day weekend approaches, but not because supplies are tight or demand is high.

U.S. crude-oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a 10-year low, but crude oil prices have climbed more than 70 percent since mid-January to a six-month high of $62.04 on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, although refiners are operating at less than 85 percent of capacity, which leaves them plenty of room to churn out more gasoline if demand rises during the summer driving season, the price of gasoline at the pump has climbed 28 cents a gallon from a month earlier to $2.33.

This time, Wall Street speculators — some of them recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayers' bailout money — may be to blame.

Big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley and others are able to sidestep the regulations that limit investments in commodities such as oil, and they're investing on behalf of pension funds, endowments, hedge funds and other big institutional investors, in part as a hedge against rising inflation.

These investors now far outnumber big fuel consumers such as airlines and trucking companies, which try to protect themselves against price swings, and they're betting that the economy eventually will rebound, that the Obama administration's spending policies and Federal Reserve actions will trigger inflation — or both — and that oil prices will rise.

"They're buying because they think it will diversify their portfolio, and they think it will diversify their portfolio against inflation, and maybe they think the economy will turn around," said Michael Masters, a hedge-fund manager who testified before Congress last year about the consequences of what are called exchange-traded funds.

Oil contracts are traded mostly in U.S. dollars, and inflation would erode the value of oil earnings, stocks or any other asset denominated in U.S. currency. Many investors are pouring money into oil futures — contracts for future deliveries of oil at specified prices — in the belief that oil prices will rise as inflation erodes the dollar's value.

This turns oil futures contracts into a way for investors to hedge against inflation at the expense of American consumers, who have to pay more to fill their gas tanks as oil and gasoline prices rise.

Masters and other critics say this speculative flow of money into commodities markets is a self-fulfilling prophecy that's distorting the usual process by which buyers and sellers set prices and is driving up the prices of oil, gasoline, grains and other essentials.

"There is definitely an inflation premium at work here," said John Kilduff, a senior vice president of MF Global in New York, a brokerage house that helps large investors trade in energy markets.

In a report May 6, CNBC television senior energy correspondent Sharon Epperson said that traders told her that prices were disconnected from supply and demand.

"Nymex traders tell me they're seeing new money coming in from passive funds that are reallocating assets away from precious metals and into energy holdings. It's this money flow — rather than the fundamental supply-demand data — that's driving oil prices higher," she reported

.

Morgan Stanley didn't respond to requests for comment via e-mail and telephone.

"Goldman Sachs declines to comment for your story," spokesman Michael DuVally said.

In a report April 16 on last year's spike in natural gas prices, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that similar investment flows drove up the price that consumers paid to heat their homes with natural gas.

"This increase in commodity prices occurred as large pools of capital flowed into various financial instruments that essentially turn commodities like natural gas into investment vehicles," the report says. "Ultimately, we believe that financial fundamentals . . . explains natural gas prices during the year."

During a visit to McClatchy's Washington Bureau, hedge-fund manager Masters also said that big institutional investors were sucking the air out of the fragile economic recovery, in part because their Wall Street partners were exempt from federal limits on how much they could bet on commodity prices.

"What they don't realize is because we don't have position limits, the money they put in is driving up the price" for oil and other commodities, he said.

Contracts for future deliveries of oil and other commodities are traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and the futures market for oil has position limits that restrict how much of the market big speculators can control.

However, big Wall Street banks are exempt from these restrictions, and there also are no such limits in derivatives markets. These vast unregulated markets involve private contracts between swaps dealers — usually big Wall Street banks — and large investors. These dark markets, also called over-the-counter markets, are thought to be 10 times larger than the futures market, and they have no position limits and no regulation.

"We were in essence operating with a blindfold on for those over-the-counter markets that we couldn't see," Michael Dunn, the acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, acknowledged last week during a news conference to announce proposed new regulation of derivatives markets.

A stream of financial deregulation under the Clinton administration, culminating in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, led to a global race away from regulation.

"The Modernization Act specifically said we were not going to look at those; we weren't going to regulate them. Times have changed, and now we think it is time for us to look at them," Dunn said.

Does Dunn think that Wall Street is partly to blame for the current $27-a-barrel run-up in oil prices or for the 12-month run-up from $70 to last July's record $147, followed by the four-month collapse in prices to $56?

"Everybody has an opinion of what drove the market in the energy crisis. Do I think it was part of the problem? I do," he said. "Do I think it was all of the problem? No.

"I think monetary policies — a weak dollar — had an impact on it. I think speculation by the herd, people saying prices of fuel are going to go up and I want to get in on that" also played a part.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which represents the big players in these markets, said in a statement to McClatchy that fundamentals, not speculation, were driving up prices.
o

"Oil prices are fundamentally driven by macroeconomic factors affecting supply and demand," the group said. "Energy derivatives are a key tool for helping companies manage the resulting fluctuations in prices."

Good News Bad News in Reversal of Preemption - which Bush used to give Federal Law peremption over state law

2009-05-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - May 23, 2009
Interstate banks, and their offshore hedge funds protected investors, utilized Federal law and Bush administration policies in the 1990s and 2000's to encroach into states such as Texas with had state laws inhibiting predatory lending policies, protective ursury laws and homestead protections allowing Texans not to lose their homes when bankrupted by unsecured debt. A return to applying Texas State Law would have been a welcome reprieve if Rick Perry were not still in office in Texas. Now, after two decades of Republican control of the Texas House and Senate, giving State Law the preemption over Federal Law, may result in less protections here than other states are reaping under the Obama administration. A review of Texas Law, code by oode, will be required to determine if Texans would benefit more from reversal of Bush era Federal Law and enforcement of Federal Law preemption over state law, or preemption of Texas Law over the Federal.

Obama Curtails Bush's Policy of 'Preemption'
It Let Federal Rules Override State Laws
By Philip Rucker - Washington Post Staff Writer - Friday, May 22, 2009

President Obama continued to reverse his predecessor's policies this week by undoing a controversial Bush administration rule known as "preemption" that used federal regulations to override state laws on the environment, health, public safety and other issues.

Obama, in a memorandum to federal agency heads issued late Wednesday, said his administration should undertake regulations preempting state laws in rare instances and "only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the states and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption."

The president ordered department heads to review all regulations issued in the past 10 years that are designed to preempt state law and determine whether they are justified under the new policy. If they cannot be justified, Obama said, his administration should consider amending the regulations.

Bush administration officials inserted preemptive language into dozens of federal regulations, in many cases shielding corporations from restrictive state laws. For instance, federal preemption provisions stopped California from enforcing a law limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

In the past ten years, the Texas Legislature voted to amend, repeal or change more of the Texas Transportation Code than had been written in the past 50 years. Most of the changes allowed privitazion of public highways and bridges, streamlined environmental impact assessments, private toll operator preferences over public transporation authorities, and streamlined eminent domain claims for land claims by private toll, stadium, pipeline and water companies.

"It's environmental law, it's drug law, it's mortgage law, it's a whole host of areas where the Bush administration was really aggressive about using regulatory action to clear state and local laws that businesses and corporations didn't like,"
said Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center.

George W. Bush and Rick Perry used Texas as an incubator, where they frequently piloted corporate friendly, consumer detrimental policy before it debuted in the national political arena. Once George W. Bush was elected President, and Rick Perry advanced to Texas Governor, they welded their political clubs in unison. Now, Texans, who have hope that a change in the Federal Administration will overturn some of the more entrenched Bush era policies, view the overturn of Federal law pre emption as possibly being a two-edged sword. If corporate lobbyists were diverted from concentrating on changing state laws once they got repressive Federal policies enacted, there may be some bright spots for Texans with this new policy, which allow older policies to again become standard practice. However, with the Perry administration still in power, it is dubious that older, more consumer friendly policies which do not favor the largest donors and international banking/petro/drug kingpins will be dusted off and practiced in the Lone Star State.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that Obama's move could wreak havoc on businesses that would have to deal with different state laws, causing a flood of lawsuits.

"Removing federal preemption forces employers to navigate a confusing, often contradictory patchwork quilt of 50 sets of laws and regulations," said Lisa Rickard, president of the Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform.

The Obama administration is probably finding that thansforming "Change" into more than a mere political slogan is more difficult than they originally surmised. Although corporations are "forbidden" from making political donations, powerful PACS of corporate employees and individuals, frequently CEOs and stockholders with deep pockets, influence lawmakers and the Executive Branch on state and Federal levels. Lawyers, acting as lobbyists, cloaked under attorney-client privilege, present corporate friendly legislation to legislative counsels without having to report their contacts with Legislators. This is how much of the corporate/industry-friendly special interest legislation gets introduced. A nod or buzz from one legislator or aide to another and word passes among cliques of legislators who shared donors and friends during campaign battles moves the legislation in and out of committee, blocking others from hearing or debate, speeding enactment of protectionism and repeals of oversight regulation legislation.

The White House described the move as another step toward rescinding Bush administration policies and protecting the constitutional rights of states.

"
This memorandum brings clarity and orderliness back to this rule-making process and also ensures that preemption will be done only in cases where it's legally justifiable," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.

Obama's memo comes nearly three months after the Supreme Court called into question Bush's preemption policy while issuing a major setback to pharmaceutical companies. In Wyeth v. Levine, the court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of a woman who had her arm amputated after an improper injection of an anti-nausea medication. The court said drugmakers could not rely on federal regulation to shield them from lawsuits brought under state consumer-protection laws.

Texas has some of the strongest anti-trust laws in any of the states. Weaker Federal policies and lack of enthusiasm for enforcement of Texas laws gave the energy sector and communication industries an almost free-run on Texas consumers for the past ten-years. In 2006, David Van Os ran for Texas Attorney general on a platform, promising to enforce Texas's Anti-trust laws. Re-elected, Gregg Abbott, has been less zealous in enforcing anti-trust legislation in Texas than some think David Van Os would have been, had he been elected Texas Attorney General. Van Os promised to utilize anti-trust statues to restrict oil and gas from gouging and price-fixing. The largest contingency of lobbyist in Austin last legislative session were employed by parties interested in the TXU acquisition. Legislation was passed tying the price consumers pay for residential electricity to the cost of natural gas, even if produced by less costly methods. This virtually took the benefit out of wind powered sources to the advantage of TXU, keeping electricity cost escalating higher in Texas than in neighboring states.

The American Association for Justice, which represents trial lawyers, cheered Obama's move, saying his memo "makes clear that the rule of law will once again prevail over the rule of politics."

Kendall, of the Constitutional Accountability Center, said that Obama "clearly understands the important role that state and local governments play in our constitutional system and has displayed a very different vision of our Constitution than President Bush displayed in his eight years."

In Texas, until special interest groups which have placed their people on the inside of government, in office and bureaus with industry oversight, are displaced, Obama's attempts to relax Bush era environment detrimental and predatory consumer practices by reviewing Bush's policy of Federal pre-emption will probably not give Texas as much relief as can be seen in other states.

Quotes in this article are from tne Washington Post

The Real Class War

2009-03-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

By David Van Os - March 17, 2009
(The opinions expressed in this column are those of David Van Os and may or may not be the expressed opinions shared by DFWRCC and/or Faith Chatham. David Van Os practices law in San Antonio, Texas)

The corporate elite and their many political stooges love to scream, "Class war!" when change is demanded from the bottom up.

Their intention is to evoke in the public mind frightening images of bloodthirsty Bolshevik revolutionaries rampaging through the streets with torches and red banners, chanting "Dictatorship of the proletariat" and shooting every businessman and employer on sight.

With such propaganda what they are really trying to do is to divert the public's attention from the true fact that there really is socioeconomic class war in the United States of America, except that the aggressors are the elite denizens of the top, not the rest of us down here at the bottom.

The bailouts of Wall Street robber barons are some of the clearest manifestations of the real class war in a long time.

For example, in an attempted defense of the obscene bonuses paid to AIG executives with taxpayers' money, the first excuse we heard two days ago was that the executives were entitled to their bonuses by contract, and we could not intrude on the sanctity of contracts.

Well, now. When the automakers asked for government assistance to stay afloat, did anybody in decision-making authority say, "We can't interfere with the United Auto Workers' contracts"? Of course not! It was presumed by all, and expected by the Congress and the President (both the former and the current), that the hourly-wage workers would give up their contractually protected benefits and wages. The Auto Workers' contracts were no less legally binding contracts than the AIG executives' contracts. In fact, it seems to me the Auto Workers' contracts carried more sanctity, in having been agreed to and ratified by many more thousands of individuals

There was one big difference between the two situations. One involved the silk stocking elite, and the other involved hourly paid blue-collar workers. One involved the aristocracy, and the other involved the grassroots masses.

And in the paneled offices and conference rooms of the Beltway elite who inhabit the political administrations (both former and current), the aristocracy protected their own. Let's make the workers at the auto plants give up their contracts, but for heaven's sake let's not interfere with the sacred contracts of our wine-and-cheese buddies.

Meanwhile right here in Texas, the Neanderthal Republican Governor and his fellow Neanderthal Republican political elite have declared that out-of-work Texans should not benefit from the extended unemployment benefits offered by the federal stimulus package. In other words, Texas taxpayers should not participate in some comeback from their own federal tax dollars. I'm talking about all Texas taxpayers, not just the unemployed. Keeping unemployment benefits flowing into the otherwise penniless pockets of the jobless puts much-needed money into the cash registers of honest local retail businesses, thus keeping more employees from falling into the ranks of the unemployed. All of us are the victims of this top vs. bottom class war that we did not initiate, are we not?

Today journalistic pundits are breathlessly announcing that populist anger is cropping up in the countryside over the Wall Street executives' greedy personal self-enrichment at the hands of the taxpayers. Well, duh!

The President and his administration have joined the outrage parade - not as leaders, but as followers of We the People when it became politically necessary. Let's keep up the "populist anger", folks. We are in the lead. And when the corporate executives and Washington politicians start talking about "class war", let's remember who has really been making war on whom for a very long time.

Sincerely,

David Van Os

email: david@texas-patriot.com

Message from Tom Love

2008-11-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

Posted by Faith for Tom Love for U.S. Congress District 24 Campaign - Nov. 4, 2008
As we enter the final stretch of this incredible race, I want to take a minute to thank you.

This nation is built on the hard work and "elbow grease" of the American people. I have traveled District 24, meeting my neighbors. I've seen the dedication of North Texans. Despite personal struggles, I've witnessed neighborhoods and communities come together to help neighbors and strangers. You solve problems, care for your families, and work for a living, while serving others - like those who had to evacuate the Texas Gulf Coast. For some this would seem heroic, but for the "extraordinary people here in North Texas, "it's normal -- it's what we do."

It is my honor to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress for the 24th District. I have grown as I've traveled and listened and learned from you.

I give each voter, encourager, volunteer, and donor my heartfelt thanks. If the voters decide to send me to Washington, I will continue listening to you. Our nation is especially challenged right now but I am confident that the spirit which exists here in North Texas and the ingenuity and dedication of the people will prevail.

The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. If you have not voted yet, PLEASE GO VOTE TODAY.

If you send me to Washington, I promise that I'll be the working man on the hill fighting for the good of the folks here in North Texas.

Thomas P. Love
Democratic Candidate for U.S. Congress District 24

Elected or Designated: Democratic Nominee in Historical Perspective

2008-08-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

OPINION: By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - August 8, 2008
Howard Dean and some so called "party leaders" are demanding that Hillary Clinton not have her name entered into nomination. News pundits have referred to the prospect of her being nominated as "unprecedented." Others discuss how having her name in nomination will take the spot light off of Obama.

The voice of 18 million voters seems inconsequential to Howard Dean and those who are threatening Senator Clinton, trying to force her not to allow her voters to be represented democratically at the Democratic National Convention.

A look at historical data shows that the "presumed nominee" does not always win the nomination. In fact, the "underdog" sometimes goes straight to the White House.

Instead of splitting the party, entering her name into nomination and allowing her delegates to represent the preference of 18 million Democratic Voters will unify the party. Unless her name is entered into nomination, a signification number of her 18 million voters will either 1. sit the election out, 2. vote only for down ticket candidates, or 3. vote for a candidate of a different party.

Democratic voters demand that the party treat every candidate fairly. Neither Senator Obama nor Senator Clinton should be marginalized or discriminated against. A fair, legitimate, honest election at the National Democratic Convention is necessary to energize and sustain the party. Howard Dean should step down as chair of the DNC because he just does not understand the importance of upholding the sacred American principal of one person one vote.

1980:
Jimmy Carter - 1981 delegates
Ted Kennedy - 1225 delegates
Uncommitted - 122
No way Kennedy could win, but his name was placed in nomination.

2004:
John Kerry: 2192.5 Pledged delegates
Howard Dean: 114.5 Pledged delegates
Dean had already dropped out with no chance of winning, but his name was placed in nomination.

2008:
Barack Obama: 1766.5 Pledged delegates
Hillary Clinton: 1639.5 Pledged delegates
The contender is being told to shut up for the sake of the party.

In addition, Teddy Kennedy has had his name on that first ballot in 1968 (12 votes), 1972 (12 votes), 1976 (1 vote), 1980 (1150 - he lost some supporters along the way).

Jesse Jackson has had his name on that first ballot twice: 1984 (465 votes), 1988 (1218 votes).

Howard Dean fails to lead. Instead he dictates and manipulates. In addition to threatening viable candidates, he appointed a third of the members of both the Rules and By Laws Committee and the Credentials Committee. Decisions by these committees to strip her of a significant number of her delegates through imposition of penalties for A RULE VIOLATION while similar penalties have not been imposed on other states where there are MANY DOCUMENTED RULES VIOLATIONS created a false perception that Senator Obama is the inevitable Democratic Nominee for president.

These committees have violated the trust of the members of the Democratic Party. Their role is not to DETERMINE who the nominee will be but to insure that there is a fair and honest process which honors the votes of American citizens.

The Chair of the Democratic Party is not elected to be a "king maker." Howard Dean's actions during this election cycle more closely resemble that of Josef Stalin than of an American leader. Chairman Dean should retire. Democrats deserve better. The American people deserve better.

Every candidate deserves to be treated fairly and respectfully.
In order to "unify the party" the nominee must win FAIR AND SQUARE. The manipulations of the Democratic Party to curtain fair electoral processes representing all candidates at the Democratic Party violate the precepts upon which the party was created.

This op-ed was posted on Daily Kos and has attacted a lot of heated comments by Obama supporters. The attitude shown by many on that site is what many Clinton supporters face in the community. There is a lack of understanding of the process and a lack of respect for the process.
If you want to join in on the discussion, register as a user of Daily Kos. Twenty four hours after you register you can comment and post.

2008-08-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Campaign and family business mix draws criticism
By JAY ROOT

Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN — It's been almost a year since the Legislature made it illegal for lawmakers to use political funds to rent property from themselves or their spouses, but some legislators have managed to still keep campaign business in the family.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has campaign space in an office building his wife owns, and records show he makes payments to her company for computer usage and paper.

Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, meanwhile, has reimbursed from campaign funds nearly $600,000 to two of his companies in recent years. He doesn't pay rent anymore but still advertises the address and a phone number at his Dallas management company, Associa, as his campaign contact information, records indicate.

Neither Shapleigh nor Carona reported a donation of office space on their recent campaign reports.

"If the space has value, which it clearly does, and it's donated to the officeholder or the campaign, it needs to be reported," said Fred Lewis, an Austin-based political activist who favors stricter campaign finance laws. "That's as clear as can be."

Controversy over mixing campaign spending with personal business prompted the Legislature to clamp down on perceived abuses in 2007. Though elected officials were prohibited years ago from using campaign money to buy real estate, many made payments to their spouses for the use of homes and offices. Critics said the loophole allowed politicians to acquire second homes in Austin and benefit from fat campaign accounts.

The Legislature closed the loophole last year and made it illegal for elected officials to rent property from companies they own or control.

Sens. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth and Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, quit paying campaign rent for luxury condos listed in their spouses' names, records show. Both had made more than $150,000 each in rent payments and related expenses to their spouses since 2000, records indicate.
Nelson's husband and Brimer's wife have since sold the condos, located in the tony Westgate building next to the state capitol. Spokesmen for both senators declined to give additional information.

Elsewhere, Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, adapted to the new law by moving his campaign office out of his Townview Professional Building. Until early last year, while the new law was still being debated, West had rented space from his own company, Skyview Development Corporation.

As for Shapleigh, the El Paso Democrat said he saw nothing wrong with continuing to make payments to his wife's company for Internet service, computers and paper. Records show he has paid the company, 701 N. St. Vrain Joint Venture, $2,423 for those purposes since the law changed last year.

"I'm over there and I'm responding to something that has to do with Senate activities," Shapleigh said. "I think we've followed the law."

Carona, chairman of the powerful Senate Transportation committee, since 2000 has reimbursed two of his companies $582,000 for various services, including rent and corporate jet travel. Carona no longer charges his campaign for rent. However, the Dallas Republican's political headquarters, as listed on his campaign Website, has the same address and phone number as Associa, his successful Dallas-based property management company.

Neither Carona nor Shapleigh reported the office space as an in-kind, or non-cash, contribution on their campaign reports.

"I don't do campaign work out of my business office," Carona said.

Natalia Ashley, general counsel for the Texas Ethics Commission, said if candidates for elective office, their spouses or their business entities give their campaigns "something of value" — whether it's money or not — the gift must be reported.

It is not uncommon for elected officials to put family members on the campaign payroll.

House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, pays his daughter, Christi, thousands of dollars a month for consulting work, records show. But while the law allows payments to adult offspring and siblings, payments to dependent children and spouses living in the same household are heavily restricted.

Complaints were filed last year against two House members who paid their wives for accounting work. One of them, Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, acknowledged he had erred and has since begun paying the money back — more than $50,000 — out of personal funds.

"I found out it wasn't permissible," Eissler said. "When I found out it wasn't, I stopped."

But Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, continued to make payments in 2007 to his wife's company, Lubbock Bookkeeping Services, after the complaint was filed. Isett told the Austin American-Statesman in late May he saw nothing wrong with paying her company a total of $39,158 last year.

However, when contacted by The Associated Press last week, Isett's consultant, Todd Smith, said the Lubbock Republican had decided to stop.

"Carl just thought it was better to end the practice altogether so there wouldn't be any questions," Smith said.

Ethics watchdogs say laws prohibiting or restricting the mingling of campaign and family business are in place for a good reason: to ensure that politicians don't divert money they get from donors and special interest groups into their family bank accounts.

"Texas law is designed to prevent campaign contributions from being used to enrich the officeholders or their spouses," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen of Texas. "There are firewalls and clear standards that have been set."

Read more in the Austin American Statesman

Clear Channel Completes Merger

2008-07-31T07:26:00.001-07:00

By DFWRCC - July 31, 2008
Media conglomerate Clear Channel's owenership change was completed yesterday. In Texas, many of the billboards in entire markets are entirely controlled by this company. Clear Channel has a significant impact on many political campaigns in Texas. Noted for donating (and reseerving) many billboards to their owner's favored right wing conservative campaigns, Clear Channel is a media which has utilized its resources to change (or keep) the Texas Political landscape conservative.

The new owners
The managing directors of the Boston-based TH Lee Parnership equity firm are:

Todd M. Abbrecht, Richard J. Bressler, Charles A. Brizius, Margaret W. Covell, Anthony J. DiNovi, Thomas M. Hagerty, David V. Harkins, Charles P. Holden, Scott L. Jaeckel, Seth W. Lawry, Soren L. Oberg, Joseph F. Pesce, Scott A. Schoen, Scott M. Sperling, George R. Taylor, Kent R. Weldon, Gregory A. White, Shari H. Wolkon,

DIRECTORS:
Joshua M. Nelson and Vivek Sharma

PRINCIPALS:
James C. Carlisle, Ganesh B. Rao, Jeff T. Swenson and J. Lucas Wimer.

VICE PRESIDENTS:
Joshua D. Bresler, Hobart A. Cook, Alexandra L. DeLaite, Daniel G. Jones, Dhruv A. Prasad, Jeremy Tan, Douglas H. Vandenberg

ASSOCIATES:
Joseph N. Benevento, Michael Beregovsky, Garrett B. Bockenek, Warren W. Chia, Varun P. Chopra, Kemper Diehl, Andrew Mayer, Megan Melican, Justina Wang and Elizabeth C. Williamson

Thomas H. Lee Partnership own Nielsen, a leading global media company providing marketing and media measurement information. Many advertising buyers base their advertising decisions upon viewership/readership data provided by Nielsen.

Another holding of T.H.Lee is UNIVISION, the Spanish-language media company which has top ratings in several key U.S. media markets.

They also own WARNER MUSIC GROUP, the hird-largest recorded music and third-largest music publishing company in the world. and CUMULUS, the largest privately-owned radio broadcasting company in the United States.

See list of holdings.

Clear Channel Goes Private

SAN ANTONIO -- July 30, 2008: As expected, the $17.9 billion buyout of Clear Channel Communications closed Wednesday. The merger is with an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CC Media Holdings, the corporation formed by private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital to complete the transaction that takes Clear Channel private. CCU stock will cease trading with the close of the market today.

"Today is a great day for our loyal and patient shareholders and, importantly, puts our company in the financial and operational position to continue to lead beneficial change in both of our core businesses," said Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays. "We are deeply grateful to our loyal employees who have remained focused and generated terrific results through their hard work and dedication."

TH Lee co-President Scott Sperling said, "We are pleased to have closed the acquisition of Clear Channel in partnership with Bain Capital Partners, the Clear Channel management team, and major public shareholders such as Highfields Capital Management and Abrams Capital. Clear Channel's strong leadership position in the radio and outdoor advertising business provides advertisers with an unparalleled platform from which to cost-effectively reach their target audiences locally and nationwide. We look forward to working with our management partners to continue building this great company."

John Connaughton, a Managing Director at Bain Capital, added, "We are very happy to have completed the purchase of Clear Channel. We continue to be impressed with the company's strong management team and its leadership position across its markets and media formats. We look forward to working with Thomas H. Lee Partners, Clear Channel management, and major public shareholders such as Highfields Capital Management and Abrams Capital to continue to strengthen Clear Channel's competitive franchise and drive value over the long term."

Man takes law into his own hands: Dripping Springs resident shows how citizens can bypass law enforcement.

2008-07-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

By Steven Kreytak - AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - Sunday, July 27, 2008

Gary Conner is not a lawyer, and he's not a cop. He's a Dripping Springs food service truck driver who says he has a healthy respect for the law.

That was enough this year for the 53-year-old to ignite a Travis County grand jury investigation into so-called "ghost voting," the practice of lawmakers at the Texas Capitol voting electronically for colleagues who are not at their desks.

The investigation wrapped last month with the grand jury issuing a report, condemning the practice and calling on the legislators to stop or change their rules, which prohibit members from voting for each other.

Conner didn't see lawmakers given the criminal charges he thinks were warranted, but, he achieved a rare feat by getting his criminal complaint considered by a grand jury, bypassing law enforcement and the district attorney's office in the process.

He relied on a seldom-utilized Texas law that allows grand juries, bodies that meet in secret and decides whether there is probable cause to issue indictments charging a crime, to take up criminal allegations from ordinary citizens. Usually, the district attorney chooses the cases presented to the grand jury.

Conner's effort required persistence with the Travis County district attorney's office and help from a state judge. It appears to reveal avenues for citizens to have criminal complaints investigated and evaluated directly by a panel of fellow members of the community.

"Now, people realize that the grand jury belongs to us. It doesn't belong to the DA," Conner said. "If we're ever going to get our government back — if it's a government of the people, by the people and for the people — at some point in time, the people have to be respected."

House officials say that the practice of members voting for absent colleagues dates back to the 1920s, when electronic voting began. A KEYE television news report on the practice was posted on YouTube last year and has been viewed more than a million times. Lawmakers said it stirred up a storm of anger from constituents. One of them was Conner.

Instead of writing his representative, Conner researched the Texas penal code. Soon, he believed that the lawmakers shown in the news report were guilty of tampering with a government record and impersonating a public servant.

But Conner, a past delegate to a Republican party convention, was afraid that the issue was "too political" to be investigated by the Travis County district attorney's office, which has the authority to investigate state officials through its public integrity unit. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been accused by some lawmakers of allowing politics to dictate whom he prosecutes, a charge that he has denied.

A defense lawyer Conner knows told him about a rarely-used part of the Texas Code of Criminal procedure that charges grand juries with investigating matters brought to them by any "credible person."

Article 20.09 of the code states: "The grand jury shall inquire into all offenses liable to indictment ... of which they shall be informed by the attorney representing the State, or any other credible person."

Armed with a copy of this law, an affidavit stating he is a credible person and a complaint he wrote that claimed 11 members of the Legislature violated the law, Conner in October went to the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, where grand juries meet.

He approached Nancy Gayle, a longtime grand jury bailiff, and said he wanted to hand his complaint to a member of the grand jury when they were not deliberating. Gayle refused, Conner said, and sent him to the district attorney's office. (Gayle no longer works as a bailiff and could not be reached for comment.)

Conner said assistants to Earle would not allow him to give his complaint to the grand jury and encouraged him to make his complaint with them.

The assistant district attorneys insisted that their office is not afraid of political cases, Conner recalled, and reminded him that they sought an indictment of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Conner agreed to hand over his complaint to them, he said.

On Feb. 7, Assistant District Attorney Gregg Cox, head of the public integrity unit, wrote Conner stating that his complaint is under review and that "this office will not make any further comment ... until the review is completed." Prosecutors later determined that no crime was committed.

Conner later asked defense lawyer Paul Velte, whom he supported when Velte ran for Hays County district attorney in 2006, if Velte "knew any judges that had any kind of regard for the Constitution."

On Velte's recommendation, Conner called state District Judge Charlie Baird.

Baird, who has been applauded by defense lawyers for what they call standing up to prosecutors, reviewed Conner's complaint and determined that he had a right to give it to the grand jury.

Baird submitted copies of Conner's allegations and DVDs of the KEYE report to two members.

Baird said it would be ideal for such citizen complaints to go through the district attorney's office, or at least to be passed by the district attorney's office to the grand jury members. But in cases when citizens feel they are being denied the ability to make their complaints, he encourages them to approach the judge that has empaneled a sitting grand jury.

Claire Dawson-Brown, chief of the grand jury division of the Travis County district attorney's office, said that Conner's complaint was mishandled. She said her office should have reviewed the complaint to make sure it was "a viable complaint," something she said Conner clearly had.

She said without that minimal screening, "you'd have all kinds of people showing up with all kinds of complaints," such as "someone with paranoid schizophrenia saying, 'People are planting bugs in my head.' "

Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which keeps watch on police and prosecutors, said the right of a citizen to have his complaint investigated by a grand jury without the consent of law enforcement "is one of the remnants we have of a real participatory part of the criminal justice system."

Harrington said he has previously mailed written complaints to grand jury members' by home addresses. Although the identities of grand jurors are not subject to open records laws, the minutes of their proceedings, which contain the name of the foreperson and any absent members, are publicly available at the district clerk's office.

Harrington said he cannot recall ever learning that his complaints were investigated.

Cutting law enforcement out of the equation "is a check to avoid corruption," Harrington said.

Read more in the AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN

Dallas County DA Watkins accuses attorney general of politics in mortgage fraud case

2008-06-24T03:42:00.000-07:00

By TIARA M. ELLIS - The Dallas Morning News - Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and the Texas attorney general's office are at odds over what Mr. Watkins calls a political maneuver meant to embarrass him.

Central to the conflict is the release of a letter by the attorney general's office concerning a real estate fraud investigation that Mr. Watkins' staff asked the attorney general to investigate and prosecute.

Mr. Watkins and his wife, Tanya, own a title company through which authorities believe a man scammed a Dallas family out of their home with forged documents. Mrs. Watkins could be called as a witness in the mortgage fraud case, which would present a conflict of interest for Mr. Watkins and his office.

Because the state released the letter to a news organization under the Texas public information act, Mr. Watkins refused Friday to deputize an assistant attorney general to work on a gambling case in Dallas County.

"It's apparent to me that the AG is using this opportunity to play politics," Mr. Watkins said. "I would hope that I'm wrong. But now I have an issue of confidence as to what they are doing over there."

But an official with Attorney General Greg Abbott's office in Austin said in an e-mail Monday that Mr. Watkins' ire is misguided.

"Craig Watkins is subject to open records laws just like all other public officials," Jerry Strickland, communications director for the Office of the Attorney General, said in an e-mail. "It is unfortunate that a criminal case has been impacted simply because Craig Watkins appeared to expect that public information concerning him would be withheld from disclosure."

But Terri Moore, first assistant district attorney for Dallas County, contended Monday that the letter is part of an ongoing investigation and part of attorney-work privilege. As such, she said, it is not releasable under the public information act.

In the letter to the attorney general's office that was released, Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Richard Zadina wrote that "Mr. Watkins apparently rendered some legal services for the title company ..."

Mr. Watkins denies performing any legal work for Fidelity National Title, the company he and his wife own, or practicing law in any other capacity. Mr. Watkins said he agrees that the AG's office needed to investigate the mortgage fraud case. But he plans to find out why Mr. Zadina wrote that the district attorney was practicing law, which is prohibited.

Mr. Zadina did not return messages Monday.

In the meantime, the attorney general and district attorney remain at an impasse. It's not clear if officials in the attorney general's office plan to continue their investigation into the mortgage fraud case.

"The best thing we can do is distance ourselves from them," Ms. Moore said. "We want to have integrity in our process."

Mr. Watkins said if it is necessary, his office has the resources to prosecute the gambling case and could have an outside attorney prosecute the fraud case.

"We wouldn't have had an issue, but for them playing politics," Mr. Watkins said. "This has nothing to do with dispensing justice."

MEDIA TALK: Study Finds Gender Imbalance on 3 Newspapers' Op-Ed Pages

2008-06-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA - The New York Times - June 23, 2008
In the great marketplace of ideas, the opinion pages of major newspapers offer nonjournalists — mainly academics — a rare chance to reach a big audience and influence public policy. So which college professors win the competition for that limited, coveted space?

Overwhelmingly, they agree with the editorial page, and they are men, according to researchers at Rutgers University. Unfortunately, those findings do not suggest the kind of forum for diverse views that newspapers say their opinion pages should be.

The authors of the study are Bob Sommer, who teaches public policy communications and is president of Observer Media, publisher of The New York Observer, and John R. Maycroft, a graduate student in public policy. They combed through 366 opinion articles written by college teachers or researchers and published by three newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Star-Ledger, the largest-circulation newspaper in New Jersey. Their study will be published in the journal Politics and Policy.

At each newspaper, 90 to 95 percent of the published articles agreed with the editorial page stance on the issue at hand, they wrote, and when the opinion pieces disagreed, “it was usually in a point/counterpoint format where at least one of the authors by definition had to take a view in opposition.”

The study says that men wrote 78 percent of the academics’ opinion pieces in The Star-Ledger, 82 percent in The Times, and 97 percent in The Journal. “Of all our analyses,” the authors wrote, “this is perhaps the most astonishing.”

They did not say whether the disparity was, in part, a reflection of the gender makeup at some university departments and institutes.

The study also found a pronounced tilt toward academics from a handful of high-prestige universities, including Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago.

Editors at The Journal and The Times declined to comment.

Josh McMahon, the op-ed page editor at The Star-Ledger, said he was surprised by the conclusions, adding that they did not reflect conscious biases.

“I’m often conscious of picking pieces I don’t necessarily agree with,” he said. “My only guideline is picking what I find interesting.”
Read more in the New York Times

Clinton Wins Puerto Rico Primary

2008-06-02T02:07:00.000-07:00

By International News - June 2, 2008
U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton has won Sunday's Democratic presidential primary contest in the commonwealth territory of Puerto Rico, soundly defeating rival Senator Barack Obama by a two to one margin. VOA's Michael Bowman reports, the Clinton victory comes near the end of the U.S. presidential primary season, and will only slightly erode Obama's lead among party delegates that will determine the Democratic presidential nominee.

Conventional wisdom holds that, at this point, Hillary Clinton has only the faintest hopes of securing the Democratic nomination. Nevertheless, she is finishing the primary season on a strong note. In recent weeks, she has scored overwhelming victories in the states of West Virginia and Kentucky. Now, she adds Puerto Rico to her win column.

Exit polls in the island territory showed her winning among all age groups, and among both men and women. Puerto Ricans may vote in primary contests, but not in the presidential election in November.

Obama still holds a comfortable lead among party delegates accrued from states and territories that have held primaries and caucuses since the beginning of the year. But Clinton's recent victories have, by some calculations, put her ahead in the popular vote tally of all ballots cast in the primary season to date.

Clinton highlighted her popular vote totals in a victory speech to supporters in Puerto Rico.

"More people have voted for us than for any candidate in the history of presidential primaries," said Hillary Clinton. "We are winning the popular vote. And it is important where we have won. We are winning these votes in swing states and among the very swing voters [that] Democrats must win to take back the White House."

Clinton added that so-called "super delegates" - party elders and elected officials who may endorse any candidate - will ultimately decide who becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. She urged super delegates to pick the strongest candidate to go up against Republican John McCain in November, and said she is that candidate.

But the Obama campaign counters that Clinton's popular vote argument is flawed, since it does not take into account vote tallies from many caucus states.
Read more

Bank backs off from credit card policy: Chase Will No Longer Increase Rates Based on Credit-Bureau Information

2008-05-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

By Chase-JP Morgan - Nov. 2007
WILMINGTON, DE (November 19, 2007) - Today, Chase Card Services announced the expansion of Chase Clear & Simple, an ongoing program designed to help Chase customers better understand and manage their accounts, with the adoption of new, clearer pricing practices.

Chase is eliminating a practice, commonly used in the industry, of increasing interest rates for individual cardholders when their credit-bureau scores decline. This change is effective on March 1, 2008.

"Chase's clear and simple approach has been developed to make us easier to do business with, helping us to build lasting, loyal relationships between ourselves and our customers," said Gordon Smith, CEO of Chase Card Services.

"As the founder of a leading consumer advocacy organization that has specifically focused on the card industry for about 10 years, I would like to commend Chase on taking such a strong stance on such an important and controversial industry practice," said Curtis Arnold, founder of U.S. Citizens for Fair Credit Card Terms and cardratings.com. "This is a major step forward for consumers. Chase's Clear & Simple program is a bright spot in the card industry and illustrates just how serious Chase is about being a consumer-friendly card issuer."

2 Voter Rights Cases, One Gripping a College Town, Stir Texas

2008-05-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL - The New York Times - Published: May 28, 2008
PRAIRIE VIEW, Tex. — “Vote or Die,” exhorts the faded slogan on a roadway at Prairie View A&M University, where black students once marched for the right to vote here in the town where they attend school, on a former cotton plantation about 50 miles northwest of Houston

The students won that battle in 2004, long after the United States Supreme Court supposedly decided the issue in 1979. But disputes over minority voting rights — along with accusations of election fraud — continue to rouse Prairie View, home to one of the nation’s leading historically black colleges, and other Texas locales.

“The cold war’s not over — they just moved the fence from Berlin to the Texas border,” said DeWayne Charleston, Waller County justice of the peace, who maintains that local officials failed to record hundreds of students whom he registered to vote in 2006. The federal Department of Justice and the Texas attorney general’s office say investigations are under way here, but will not give details.

Meanwhile, the attorney general, Greg Abbott, is a defendant in a separate voting rights case that goes to federal trial on Wednesday in the East Texas city of Marshall, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last month upholding Indiana’s tough voter identification law.

Arguing that antifraud provisions enacted in 2003 were being selectively enforced to intimidate minority voters who are largely Democrats, the Texas Democratic Party filed suit against Mr. Abbott and Phil Wilson, the secretary of state, both Republicans.

The suit, initially filed in 2006, contends that get-out-the-vote activists who help voters with mail ballots have been “interrogated, harassed and intimidated” by state investigators.

J. Gerald Hebert, the lawyer for the Democrats, said his first witnesses would be several elderly black women prosecuted on fraud charges for what Mr. Hebert described as help given other elderly voters in the mailing of early ballots in Texarkana, Fort Worth and Dallas.

Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson say they have a duty to prevent voter fraud. To complaints that any infractions at issue have been insignificant, they say that in pursuit of that duty, they must pursue violations of provisions like one that requires anyone mailing in a ballot to sign the envelope.

They say that “there is no evidence of any voters who have been unable to vote due to enactment or enforcement” of the provisions, which, they also note, were sponsored in the Texas House by a Democrat. Further, they say, there is no evidence that enforcement has intimidated anyone into stopping voter assistance efforts.

The Dallas Morning News reported on May 18 that all 26 cases of voter fraud prosecuted by Mr. Abbott had been brought against Democrats, almost all of them black or Hispanic.

But in their legal brief, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson said that the state had brought voter fraud cases against Republicans as well and that “mere questioning” of people about activities that might have broken the law did not deprive them of a constitutional right.

The brief said the two officials’ position was strengthened by the Supreme Court’s Indiana ruling, on April 28, which allowed states, as a way of preventing fraud, to require voters to show photo identification.

The suit against Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wilson involves enforcement of provisions that make it a crime in certain cases to carry someone else’s filled-in early-voting ballot to the mailbox, to possess another person’s blank ballot or to provide early-voting ballot assistance to anyone who has not asked for it.

The case, to be tried without a jury before Judge T. John Ward, has put Mr. Abbott at odds with Judge Charleston and some campus activists at Prairie View, who say they once looked to the attorney general as a champion of their voting rights.

In 2004, Oliver Kitzman, then the Waller County district attorney, challenged the students’ right to cast ballots here rather than in their home communities, although the Supreme Court had long ago decided they could. Students, claiming that the county’s white residents feared the voting power of the predominantly black 9,000-member student body, marched in protest, and Mr. Abbott wrote an opinion supporting them. Mr. Kitzman soon retired, and students continued to cast ballots here.

But other voting rights disputes have since erupted. Before the 2006 election, Judge Charleston said in an interview, he personally registered about 1,000 students. But on Election Day, he said, hundreds of them were turned away as not registered to vote. The registration cards were later found in county offices, he said.

Ellen C. Shelburne, the county tax assessor and registrar, who took office in January 2007, said she had recently been questioned by investigators from Mr. Abbott’s office and had told them that she knew nothing about the matter. Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott, said, “We cannot comment on ongoing investigations.”

Jamie Hais, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said, “We do have an ongoing investigation into the matter,” but declined to comment further.

Judge Charleston said he had also complained to federal and state officials that Waller County had denied Prairie View students convenient polling locations. Further, he told them that for the May 10 school board election, not only did district trustees use public money to issue a voter guide, the guide also gave short shift to two black candidates, Jemiah Richards and Charli Cooksey, both Prairie View students, who subsequently lost to incumbents.

Patrick W. Mizell, a lawyer for the firm of Vinson & Elkins, which was hired to represent the school board, said that this was the first time the trustees had put out a guide but that he saw nothing wrong with it.

Anyway, Mr. Mizell said, “I don’t think a large number of Prairie View students have kids in the local school district.”

Stand With Hillary Rally Saturday, May 17th in Arlington

2008-05-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

click for larger image

Legislators may lose ghost employees: Full Time Work For Part Time Pay May Soon End At State House

2008-05-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Austin American Statesman TOPIX - Thursday May 8 “The House has allowed them to do that. Specifically (House rules) say that the House member has complete power over that aspect of their office funds.

"Those rules give the legislators so much leeway.”

The Legislature's long-standing practice of hiring full-time employees at part-time hours and pay may be nearing an end just as the issue becomes a political football for state lawmakers.

The Austin American-Statesman has reported that at least 12 House employees are paid less than $300 a month and work other jobs, but have been enjoying the insurance and pension benefits of full-time employment.

As lawmakers were asked to remove the so-called ghost employees from their payrolls, investigators began an inquiry into what rules or laws may have been broken after the newspaper report last week put the practice in the public spotlight for the first time. Read more

Also see coverage on KBTX
Texas House May No Longer Get To Hire Part Time, Pay Full Time
By KBTX - May 6, 2008

AUSTIN (AP) - The Texas Legislature's long-standing practice of hiring full-time employees at part-time hours and pay -- may be nearing an end.
The Austin American-Statesman has reported that at least 12 House employees are paid less than $300 a month and work other jobs. But those employees have been enjoying the insurance and pension benefits of full-time employment.
Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick has ordered a review by the House Investigations and Ethics Committee.
House Administration chairman Tony Goolsby asked lawmakers to review their records, noting that such arrangements would violateHouse rules and state law.
The newspaper reported that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle also is investigating the practice for possiblecriminal violations. Earle's office would not confirm such aninvestigation.
Texas House rules allow each lawmaker to hire and supervise his employees, but the rules also define full-time status as 40 hours
per week.
-- At least two of the ghost employees employed by House Democrats were former lawmakers, whose pension is tied to years of service. That means the longer they remain a full-time employee,the more they get paid in retirement.

Texas officials criticized for cozy relationships

2008-05-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

By BRETT SHIPP - WFAA-TV - Friday, May 9, 2008Are Texas Railroad Commissioners too cozy with the oil and gas industry operators they are supposed to be regulating?

It's a question being raised in the wake of a News 8 investigation into deadly natural gas fittings, fittings that some say Commissioners should have forced gas companies to remove years ago.

For most it's tragedy long forgotten. Three elderly people killed in a house explosion in Garland in January, 2000. Investigators ruled that a small gas pipeline had cracked and leaked, causing the explosion that killed Albert and Lillian Holbert and her sister Callie Hickerson. But the Holberts' daughter, Sydna Gordon, will never forget.

Still etched in her mind, the moment she found out that the faulty pipe that killed her parents had a legacy of failure and death in Texas dating back to 1983.

Only after her parents died, did State Railroad Commissioners order the faulty pipe removed from the ground. “The Railroad Commission is the governmental agency in this state that has the responsibility to make sure we are all safe and they don't do it," said Gordon.

West Texas rancher Jay Marcom is a frequent critic of State Railroad Commissioners. His ranch land is crisscrossed by a corroded, 80 year old natural gas pipeline which spring six leaks last year, polluting his soil and his wells.

When he tries to get Railroad Commissioners to protect him and his land he says they almost always side with the gas company... and he thinks he knows why. “As long as the Railroad Commission of Texas is funded and influenced by the oil and gas industry of the state of Texas there will never be a change," said Marcom.

According to the government watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, all three commissioners campaigns are heavily funded by the people they regulate.

Of the $1.6 million dollars raised by Victor Carrillo in 2004, 46-percent came from individuals connected to the oil and gas industry.

Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones raised just over $2-million dollars in 2006. Of that, 35-percent was oil and gas money.

And a News Eight analysis of Commission Chairman Michael Williams January campaign report shows of the $400,000 he raised, 42-percent came from individuals with ties to the oil and gas industry.

Critics say those percentages are hard to ignore. "With the Railroad Commission we don't know who these people are, nobody knows what they do for a living, except the oil and gas industry that they are supposed to regulate,” said Andrew Wheat, director of Texans for Public Justice. “But, at the same time that's the very industry that is paying for their political careers."

Chairman Williams says contributions do not buy influence. "I reject that notion,” said Williams. “I am very confident that I make decisions based on facts and based on good sound policy and based on what I think is the best interest of my fellow Texans."

Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones told News 8, "I've always called balls and strikes the way I see them, and I don't ever intend to stop doing that."

Commissioner Victor Carrillo rejects critics claims as well. "My personal integrity dictates that the decisions I make are based on sound legal, policy, and scientific reasoning and not based on who has contributed to my campaign," said Carrillo.

All three commissioners reacted quickly to our investigation into faulty gas couplings that led to two deaths in Wylie in 2006, and two more in Cleburne last year.

Just days after our reports aired Commissioners ordered the couplings removed from the ground.

But in the cases of the faulty couplings and the cracked pipe which killed the Holberts, past and present Railroad Commissioners had access to years of evidence that potentially deadly problems existed.

And for years no action was taken to force the removal of the potentially deadly products, a removal that would have cost industry officials millions of dollars.

To this day Gordon believes had Railroad Commissioners done their jobs her parents would still be alive. “The Railroad Commission is only interested in protecting the gas companies not the rest of us asleep in our beds," said Gordon.

Late last year a state audit criticized Railroad Commission inspectors for being too cozy with and accepting small gifts from the oil and gas operators they are supposed regulate.

Railroad Commissioners have pledged to discontinue that practice.
See more of News 8 Investigative Report

Texas could close four schools if they fail again

2008-04-28T03:17:00.001-07:00

By Kate Alexander - AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF - Monday, April 28, 2008

Four low-performing Texas schools, including Johnston High School in East Austin, are facing the highest of stakes on this year's high-stakes tests.

Rated "academically unacceptable" for at least the past four years, the schools must be closed or turned over to new management if attendance and student performance on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills once again fall below state standards. Testing started for some grades weeks ago and will end in May.

The mandatory sanction is the most severe in the state's school accountability system and has not previously been imposed by the Texas Education Agency.

Despite ample public discussion about accountability, testing and standards, little attention has been paid to what happens when a school reaches the end of the line.

A dramatic move by the state, which could come as early as June, would serve as a cautionary tale to other low-performing schools and would also shake up the teachers, school leaders and district administrators.

Whether the students would benefit from a shake-up, however, is unknown, education experts say.

"We're trying a lot of stuff without having any kind of scientific research," University of Texas education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig said.

There is a "gut feeling" that tough sanctions will fix the problem, he said, and the sanctions allow political and education leaders to say they have done something to hold failing schools accountable.

But if the accountability does not work as advertised, Vasquez Heilig said, the students will bear the brunt of the adults' bad decisions.

"The real question is what do you do to ensure that you providea sound academic program to the kids there," said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University who has done research on Texas schools.

"The current kids don't have the luxury of waiting while someone else figures out how to better manage the schools."

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, who could not be reached for comment, said at a recent conference that no decision has been made on the future of the schools but that "we're going to do better for these kids."

The Legislature sharpened the teeth of the school accountability system in 2006 by mandating closure or outside management when a campus reaches its fifth year with an "academically unacceptable" rating.

Five years is a long time for students to be stuck in a failing school, so the Legislature added the mandatory provision to show the gravity of continued failure, said state Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, chairman of the House Public Education Committee. "You have a drastic penalty, and you admit that it is drastic so that everybody will know it and they won't get in that situation."

That penalty is stalking mostly urban schools with large populations of low-income students, many of whom are new to the schools. Eissler and others are considering ways to change the accountability system during the next legislative session to recognize the particular challenges of those schools.

The changes might include incentives to attract the best teachers and administrators to the struggling schools as well as altering how the state measures progress.

Any future changes will not help the schools that might pass the five-year threshold now.

Those schools can avoid the tumult by earning an "acceptable" rating — the third-lowest of four rankings in the state accountability system — based on the 2008 tests as well as meeting certain standards for attendance and the dropout rate. At least two of the schools have made strides over the past four years that have gotten them close to the mark.

Officials at Sam Houston High School in the Houston district are confident that the school can break its five-year streak of being rated academically unacceptable, said Karen Soehnge Garza, chief academic officer for the district.

Last year, the school missed the "acceptable" standard because of the performance of African Americans on the math test. The state granted a one-year waiver of closure or new management because the struggling group was very small — 59 test-takers in the subgroup out of more than 2,500 students.

In recent years, the district has pumped resources into the school to reduce class size, provide tutoring from college students and make other changes, Garza said. This year, that effort cost an additional $675,000.

"It is going to pay off," Garza said.

G.L. Wiley Middle School in Waco has experienced "phenomenal gains," district spokesman Dale Caffey said, and an "acceptable" rating is expected this year.

There is similar optimism at Oak Village Middle School in the North Forest district near Houston, spokeswoman Nakisha Myles said in an e-mailed response to questions.

The students struggled last year on the math and social studies tests, and the school also had a problem with dropouts.

North Forest's troubles extend far beyond one school. The district has a host of financial and management problems that have prompted Texas Education Agency intervention and talk of dissolution.

Of all the schools, problems appear the most pervasive at Austin's Johnston High.

Every demographic group that figures into the rating missed the state standards last year on every test. The passing rates largely dropped — many by double-digit percentage points — even with three years of the intervention and overhaul that is mandated by the state. Substantial gains will be necessary on this year's tests to meet the so-called required improvement standard and avoid state action.

Administrators acknowledged in a recent communication to the Austin district's Board of Trustees that closure was "probable," wording that was suggested by agency officials to underscore the dire situation.

A previous closure plan had most Johnston students going to Reagan High School, which has been rated academically unacceptable for the past two years. Other students would head to Austin, LBJ, McCallum and Travis high schools.

But the school board must approve a new plan in May, a requirement by the agency.

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said the state needs to keep in mind the main objective of the accountability system in dealing with Johnston.

"The goal is educating our children and creating the opportunity for them to be educated," Watson said. "It is not just to have the ability to say, 'We have held you accountable by shutting you down and padlocking your school.' "

If Johnston does not meet standardsthis year, the state should find a solution that does not punish the students, the community and the school district, Watson said.

Use Johnston as an opportunity to show how school turnaround can be done with minimal disruptions and without creating a bevy of unintended consequences, he said.

"I fundamentally believe that we have to be willing to experiment with how we're going to keep urban schools open," Watson said. "We can't just be saying, 'In the name of accountability, we'll close these schools.' "

Closure can be a solution for a long-dysfunctional school that has become impervious to change, said Michael Petrilli, a former U.S. Education Department official who helped implement the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"In terms of achievement, I think it is still an open question and the devil is in the details," said Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education reform group in Washington that promotes school accountability.

For the closure strategy to succeed, a comprehensive and tested "new school" plan must be in place that allows for aggressive change, Petrilli said. He has not found many instances across the country in which schools have been systematically closed and then established as better schools.

The Texas law does allow for keeping the campus open and turning it over to a nonprofit organization or another school district to manage.

An alternative approach would allow for more flexibility and innovation in running the schools, Petrilli said.

Austin school board members have said they would like to use that alternative route to create an "in-district" charter school at Johnston, if necessary. That option is available when there is a "reasonable expectation" that the school will earn at least an "academically acceptable" rating within three years of the new management, according to the law.

State Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston and a member of the public education committee, said the challenges before these schools and the students will not be resolved by relocation.

Chronic failure of a school "is not a function of the walls or the building. It is a function of the people who allocate resources and who make hiring decisions," Hochberg said.

"Forcing those kids to go to a different school won't necessarily fix the problems that those kids have but might make those kids disappear in the larger numbers at another school."

kalexander@statesman.com; 445-3618

Population breakdown for the four schools

Johnston High (Austin)

African American 16%

Hispanic 82.1%

White 1.8%

Economically Disadvantaged 81.6%

Limited English Proficient 20.4%

Mobile students* 43.9%

Sam Houston High (Houston)

African American 4.1%

Hispanic 92.5%

White 3.2%

Economically Disadvantaged 73.7%

Limited English Proficient 16.4%

Mobile* 27.2%

Oak Village Middle (North Forest/Houston)

African American 66.7%

Hispanic 32.7%

White 0.4%

Economically Disadvantaged 99.1%

Limited English Proficient 10.2%

Mobile* 24.2%

G.L. Wiley Middle (Waco)

African American 76.2%

Hispanic 21.8%

White 1.9%

Economically Disadvantaged 97.1%

Limited English Proficient 4.4%

Mobile* 47.7%

* Students are considered mobile if they attended a school for less than 83% of the school year (i.e., have missed six or more weeks at a particular school).

Source: Texas Education Agency

Schools facing possible closure or alternative management

Johnston High, Austin district

Sam Houston High, Houston district

Oak Village Middle, North Forest district (suburban Houston)

G.L. Wiley Middle, Waco district
Read more in the Austin American Statesman

President BIll Clinton scheduled in Arlington Sunday Feb. 24th

2008-02-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

Join President Bill Clinton for an "Early Vote Rally" in Arlington!
Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM
at Vandergriff Park
2800 South Center Street
Arlington, TX 76014
General Area: Near the Bob Duncan Community Center (an early voting site).

(This park is between I-20 and Pioneer Parkway. There is also an entrance on Matlock Road.)

Vote early for Hillary and then join President Bill Clinton for a rally in Arlington! Voting for Hillary early takes us one step closer to getting our country back on track. To find the early vote location nearest you.
For more information see website:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/txearlyvote/

Host: Texas For Hillary

For decades most national Democratic campaigns have bypassed Arlington as too Republican and too costly to work.

Sandwiched between the Dallas and Fort Worth media markets, Arlington is viewed as one of the most costly cities to reach voters. Usually campaigns bypass Arlington and concentrate their dollars in communities which are viewed as less red.
Shifting demographics continue to make Arlington more attractive to Democratic campaigns. This year both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have devoted resources to reaching Arlington voters. Earlier this month Chelsea Clinton appeared at UTA and President Bill Clinton is scheduled to appear at a rally in Arlington tomorrow, Sunday, Feb. 24rd.

During the first three days of early voting, more voters have voted in the Democratic Primary at all Arlington early voting sites than in the Republican Primary in Arlington. Democratic turnout Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 19, 20, 21 in Arlington has exceeded the highest turnout of any party in the past decade.

Tarrant County Democrats outnumber Republican Voters during first three days of early voting

2008-02-22T16:12:00.001-08:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Feb. 22, 2008

On the third day of Early Voting, all Tarrant County voting sites except two reported more Democratic Voters than Republican Primary Voters.
At Benbrook City Hall 104 Republicans voted early on Thursday and 98 Democrats voted early. At Nance Elementary 16 Republicans voted early and 10 Democrats voted early. A significant number more Democrats than Republicans voted Thursday at all other Tarrant County Early Voting sites.

County wide, 5,733 Democrats voted early on Tuesday while only 2,605 Repubicans voted early. This year both parties in Tarrant County have exceeded the number of voters participating in their primaries during the first and second days of early voting in the 2000 and 2004 Primaries. On the third day, Republican turn-out was less than in 2000; Democratic turnout on the Third Day in Tarrant County this year is over 6 1/2 times greater than 2000 Day three turnout and over 7 1/2 times greater than in the 2004 Presidential Democratic Primary.

In Arlington this year, larger numbers of Democrats are voting than Republicans. Democratic turnout at the five Arlington early voting sites exceeded Republican turnout for the first time in decades. In Arlington, known as a "Republican stronghold", 1033 votes were cast the first day of Early Voting in the Democratic primary while only 496 Republican votes were cast.
County wide, 5,733 Democrats voted early the first day; 2,606 Republicans voted early in Tarrant County on Tuesday.

On Wednesday Feb. 20, in Arlington, 1112 Democrats voted early; 463 Republicans voted early at the five early voting sites in Arlington.

On Thursday, Feb. 21, in Arlington, 846 Democrats voted early; 421 Republicans voted Thursday in Arlington.

County Wide on Tuesday Feb. 19, 5,732 Democrats voted and 2,607 Republicans voted.
County Wide on Wednedsay Feb. 20, 5,602 Democrats voted and 2,583 Republicans voted.
County Wide on Thursday, Feb. 21, 4,554 Democrats voted and 2,204 Republicans voted.
Wednesday. 5603 Democrats voted early; 2583 Republicans cast early ballots.

During the first three days of Early Voting this year in Tarrant County 15,888 Democrats voted early and 7,394 Republicans voted early.

MAIL BALLOTS

By the second day of early voting, Tarrant County Elections reported a total of 2,146Democratic Primary mail ballots had been received and 1,982 Democratic Primary Vote by Mail ballots were still unvoted; 536 Republican Primary voters have returned Vote by Mail Ballots; 849 Republican Vote by Mail ballots remained to be voted at the close of the second day of Early Voting.
By Thursday, Feb. 21st, 2,324 Democratic Vote by Mail Ballots had been returned and 1,935 Democratic Vote By Mail Ballots remained unvoted; 584 Republican Vote By Mail Ballots had been returned by Thursday and 856 Republican Vote By Mail Ballots remianed out and unvoted.

At the close of the third day of early voting 15,888 Democrats had voted early (in person and by mail) and 7,394 Republicans had voted early. In Tarrant County on each of the first three days of early voting, over twice the number of Democrats cast early votes than Republicans.

In 2000 in Tarrant County more Republicans voted early than Democrats during the first three days of Early Voting; In 2004 more Democrats voted early during the first three days of early voting than Republicans. However, this year a much higher percentage of Democrats are voting early than in 2004.

DAY 1 EARLY VOTING
Tarrant County - 2000:
Democratic Voters: 372 - Republican Voters: 1,558
Tarrant County - 2004:
Democratic Voters: 396 - Republican Voters: 286
Tarrant County - 2008:
Democratic Voters: 5,732 - Republican Voters: 2,607

DAY 2 EARLY VOTING
Tarrant County - 2000:
Democratic Voters: 558 - Republican Voters:2,518
Tarrant County - 2004:
Democratic Voters: 464 - Republican Voters: 387
Tarrant County - 2008:
Democratic Voters: 5,602 - Republican Voters: 2,583

DAY 3 EARLY VOTING
Tarrant County - 2000:
Democratic Voters: 713 - Republican Voters: 3,319
Tarrant County - 2004:
Democratic Voters: 591 - Republican Voters: 496
Tarrant County - 2008:
Democratic Voters: 4,554 - Republican Voters: 2,204

SOURCE: Tarrant County Election 3-4-2008 Primary Elections Combined Early Voting posted Friday, Feb. 22, 2008

TX House Elections Committee Public Hearing: Considers lobbyist fee ban and use of state funded e-mails for political communications

2008-02-16T05:47:00.000-08:00

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ELECTIONS COMMITTEE NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

TIME & DATE: 1:00 PM, Monday, February 25, 2008

PLACE: E2.028

CHAIR: Rep. Leo Berman

The committee will hear invited testimony on the following charges:

Study the exemption in the Texas lobby contingent fee ban, which currently permits contingent fees and does not require lobby registration, for influenceing the purchasing of goods or servisces by a state agency.

Consider whether this exemption should be amended or repealed.

Research the current Texas law prohibiting the use of public resources
for political advertising, and determine whether the law needs to be amended to clarify that publicly funded e-mail systems may not be used for political communications.

Williams' Acceptance Of Super Bowl Tickets Highlights Need For Contribution Reform For RRC

2008-02-13T06:09:00.001-08:00

By Vince Leibowitz - Dale Henry Campaign - Feb. 13, 2008

AUSTIN--Following revelations by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Railroad Commissioner Michael L. Williams accepted free Super Bowl tickets from a lobbyist for CenterPoint Energy in 2004, the Dale Henry Campaign released the following statement:
"This episode highlights the need for real campaign finance reform for the Texas Railroad Commission," said Dale Henry (D-Lampasas).

"The Texas Railroad Commissioners should not have such a cozy relationship with the industries they regulate. It just promotes the continued rubber-stamp culture of the Commission. Of course, given the culture of the Texas Railroad Commission, I suppose it should come as no surprise to us that a sitting Railroad Commissioner would take Super Bowl tickets from a CenterPoint Energy Lobbyist and then turn around and vote on cost-of-service rate increases that are passed on directly to consumers," said Vince Leibowitz, Campaign Director.

"This is exactly why I've proposed my "Texans First Campaign Finance Reform" package," said Henry. "The members of the Texas Railroad Commission should not take money from--and should not be beholden to--the industries they regulate. This is why I plan to, as Railroad Commissioner, ask the Texas Legislature to pass a campaign finance bill that will prohibit the practice of Railroad Commissioners accepting money from the industries they regulate," Henry said.

Dale Henry, a petroleum engineer with more than four decades of experience in the oil and gas service industry, is the most experienced candidate in the race for Texas Railroad Commission. Henry is endorsed by State Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston), the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, The Harris County Democrats, the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, The Austin GLBT Political Caucus, Stonewall Democrats of Austin, longtime progressive leader David Van Os and other individuals listed on his campaign website.

Henry faces Art Hall of San Antonio and Mark Thompson of Hamilton in the March 4 Democratic Primary. The winner of the March 4 Democratic Primary will face Commissioner Michael L. Williams in the general election.

Water Conservation Key Issue for Railroad Commissioner Candidate Dale Henry

2008-02-12T10:31:00.001-08:00

By Sandra Cason - The Marshall News Messenger - Friday, February 08, 2008

It's all about water, said Dale Henry, Democratic candidate for Texas Railroad Commission.

"My campaign is important for one reason," Henry said, "and that is because the state of Texas is running out of water. It is an abused natural resource and the Railroad Commission has done nothing about it for the past 106 years."

If he is elected in this, his third bid for the seat, Henry said he will be the first commissioner with hands-on experience in oil and gas exploration, the industry for which the commission provides oversight.

Henry faces Art Hall and Mark Thompson in the March 4 Democratic Primary. If he is the party nominee, Henry will face Republican incumbent Michael Williams in the November general election.

A resident of Lampasas, 50 miles west of Austin, and a graduate of University of Texas, Henry is a retired employee of Schlumber J company, having worked in the oil fields of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

"I spent a number of years in research and development and I hold several fracturing patents," Henry said.

"I've been out there and seen it all," he added.

While many people may not stop to think about it that way, Henry pointed out that oil and gas drilling operations have a tremendous impact on ground water.

"Oil and gas activity inherently produces a lot of water," Henry said. "Water is what is used to bring it to the surface, but on its way, the water accumulates contaminated materials."

A common disposal method for the liquid is "to put it back in the ground."

Henry said he learned of a DeBerry preacher whose church hasn't had water in a number of years. "One well was drilled too close to his church and all the wells in the area are contaminated with salt water. You can drill a hundred good ones, but it takes just one bad well to create a whole bunch of problems," Henry said.

Good drilling practices are particularly important at this point in time because so many production companies are now using a horizontal approach.

"There's an area called the Barnett Shale," Henry said. "It is a very thick layer of stone and breaking through it has never made the effort worthwhile until horizontal drilling. That's the key."

In this method, the pipeline goes down for a distance, "turns a corner," and goes under the stone, Henry explained.

This type of drilling uses "millions of gallons of water per day. Sometimes it will be as much as 275,000 gallons," Henry added.

With such large quantities to be disposed of, Henry said it is more important than ever that the Railroad Commission check all drilling permit applications thoroughly, a practice he claims is not currently followed.

"This rubber-stamping has to stop," he said.

Use of environmentally safe drilling practices are especially important to this area because of Caddo Lake, Henry said.

"I've done hands-on work for the Railroad Commission in Caddo — the plugging of abandoned wells. Ninety percent of those I plugged had not be plugged by Railroad Commission rules and regulations the first time around.

"I will make protecting our water a priority for the Texas Railroad Commission," Henry said in a promotional brochure.

"In dry West Texas, the ranchers have to work hard at salvaging water to grow grass with which to feed cattle and produce beef. At the ranch my wife and I have operated for years, we cut the number of production acres needed per cow and calf from 25 acres to 2.5 acres by getting our water to the right place.

"Water's my passion. I know how to do it," Henry said.

"I'm not a politician and I shouldn't have to be involved in this, but the oil and gas companies are polluting our water, soil, and air, and the Railroad Commission simply turns its back and lets it happen.

"Instead of regulating these industries, the three commissioners are raking in campaign contributions from their executives and political action committees and are burying their heads in the sand.

"It's time for change," Henry said. "I need to bring the knowledge I have back to the people, if they'd like me to share it.

"I can do the job. I want the job.

"The petroleum industry is a great benefit to our state's economy, but that should not come at the expense of our environment or our fresh water supply," he said.

Read more in the Marshall News Messenger

Tx RR Commission Candidate - Dale Henry: Protecting state's water a priority

2008-02-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

By RANDY ROSS - Longview News-Journal - Friday, February 08, 2008

Protecting the waters of Texas is a priority for Dale Henry.

The 76-year-old Democratic candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission said the production of oil and gas in Texas does not matter if the industry destroys Texas' natural water sources.

"We have to stop wasting and contaminating our water," Henry said.

Henry faces Art Hall of San Antonio and Mark Thompson of Hamilton in the Democratic primary election on March 4.

Henry has more than 40 years of experience working in the oil and natural gas fields in the United States and abroad, according to his campaign Web site. He has a bachelor of science degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

"I've been hands-on from the top to the bottom," Henry said. "I more or less speak the language of the oilfield."

The Railroad Commission is the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry and the surface mining of coal. Established by the Legislature in 1891, the commission is the state's oldest regulatory agency, according to the agency's Web site.

The self-described environmentalist from Lampasas is a former city manager and county commissioner. He also founded 4 Arrows, the first cementing service company contracted by the railroad commission.

Henry said his experience in the oil and gas industry make him an ideal candidate for the commission. He said he knows the commission's rules and regulations from working as a contractor, and he would be able to begin working on his first day.

The oil and gas industry has a strong economic impact on the state, he said. That impact has come at a cost to the public, he said.

Henry said the commission has for many years considered the economics of the industry more important than public safety. He said that philosophy has changed in recent years, but it needs to continue to change. He said the commission must consider what is in the public's best interest.

"Environmentally, we have a problem," Henry said.

He said companies often cut corners when installing casing in wells to save money. As time erodes sealing and concrete shifts, water begins flowing and drawing out contaminants.

By forcing companies to install casing properly, Henry said companies would save more money in the long-term by avoiding remedial and repair work.

"These are serious matters," Henry said.

Attempts to reach Republican incumbent Michael Williams for comment were unsuccessful Thursday.

Read more in the Longview News-Journal

Consumer issues likely to play large role in Texas Railroad Commission race

2008-02-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

By R.A. DYER - Star-Telegram Staff Writer - Mon, Feb. 11, 2008
AUSTIN -- With North Texas residents feeling the economic pinch -- and home energy prices on the rise -- consumer issues could take center stage in the race for the Texas Railroad Commission.

Agency Chairman Michael Williams, 54, a Republican, is seeking re-election. Three Democrats are also running in their party's March 4 primary: former San Antonio Councilman Art Hall, 37; retired chemical engineer Dale Henry, 76; and Mark Thompson, 48, a mobility specialist for the blind. Thompson lives in Hamilton.

Set against the backdrop of the race are several home heating rate increases authorized by the commission. In at least two major North Texas cases, Williams joined with other commissioners in setting rates higher than the agency's own panel of experts had recommended.

Williams said that while he sometimes disagrees with those experts -- they're administrative law judges, and they conduct hearings and consider evidence in rate proceedings -- he nonetheless strives to reject unwarranted requests by utilities.

"But we can have a difference of opinion with regards to policy questions," he said.

The three Democratic candidates say the commission and Williams are too close to the industry they regulate. Each Democrat lambasted the panel for not doing enough to protect consumers.

"Citizens need to get upset -- they need to write the Texas Railroad Commission and talk to them," Thompson said.

The Texas Railroad Commission, an agency little-understood by the public, regulates the oil and gas industry and is charged with ensuring pipeline safety. It also makes environmental decisions regarding oil wells and authorizes cost-of-service rates for natural gas utilities.

Each of the Democrats gave the commission poor marks when it came to protecting ratepayers.

But it's also clear that not all the Democrats are well-versed on commission responsibilities.

For instance, Thompson has claimed that the agency lacks authority to set municipal rates. "When you think about it, they don't control rates in the cities," he said.

Actually, the commission has great authority over cost-of-service rates charged within cities.

Likewise, Hall stated at one time on his Web site that he would make railroad safety an issue in the race. Despite its name, the Texas Railroad Commission has no authority over railroads.

But Hall also said he has received an earful of complaints from North Texas residents about high utility rates. He described the commission as a "rubber stamp" for industry.

"I think it'll definitely be an issue during the general election," he said.

Henry, the retired petroleum engineer, said, "The Railroad Commission of Texas should not sit idly by as energy companies stick bills for hotel rooms and cases of wine to their ratepayers through cost-of-service rate increases" -- a reference to various luxury items put in a recent rate case by Atmos Energy.

The North Texas utility removed the items after reports appeared in the Star-Telegram.

Henry also said the commissioner has not done enough to ensure that Texans pay only the appropriate commodity price of natural gas and has "not done a credible job in reviewing and approving cost-of-service rate increases for natural gas companies."

A recent analysis by the Star-Telegram found that annual home heating bills are about the same now as they were in 2005, even though the commodity price of natural gas has come down dramatically since two hurricanes disrupted supplies that year.

The reason that bills remain high is related, in part, to repeated cost-of-service increases authorized by the commission.

"They need to keep down rates so that they're more reasonable," Thompson said.
Read more in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

South Caroline Debate -- U-Tube video clip of Edwards' Plan to Save Social Security

2008-01-25T04:53:00.002-08:00

HD 46: Hire Dukes, Get A Bill Passed?

2008-01-19T12:47:00.000-08:00

By Vince Leibowitz - Capitol Annex - Jan. 19, 2008

Suppose a Legislator gets a contract to work as a “consultant” for a multi-million dollar land developer. The Legislator then passes a bill that increases the overall value of the entire development by providing millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded incentives for one of the land developer’s most high-profile, anchor tenants.
Sound ethical, or even legal?

Well, you’ll never guess who were talking about…again. Yep, increasingly ethically challenged, Republican-funded Craddick Democrat, Dawnna Dukes.

Apparently, when she’s not accepting contributions from GOP Contributors, or defending Tom Craddick, or helping her sister get a toll-road contract the day after she votes for toll roads, or running up $89,000 in illegally reported “campaign” credit card expenses, or missing a crucial vote on the house floor because of a vacation in France, or skipping an important Medicaid Reform Hearing for a conference in La Jolla with a weekend stay-over in Vegas, (to name just a few of her shortcomings) she is using her office to help get personal contracts with multi-million dollar land developers.

I’ve been told off the record by quite a few lobbyists that at the end of meetings about legislative initiatives with their clients Dukes will pop that most uncomfortable of questions…“what’s in it for me?” This is the point in the program where the testicles of the lobbyists shrivel up, the lobbyist turns beat red, and he starts to seek solace in a close corner behind a thick drape. The Southwest Airlines “wanna getaway” ding starts ringing in his head. And he starts to imagine what it will be like to testify in front of a grand jury after Ronnie Earle finds out about the meeting in which he probably just witnessed an act of legislative bribery. Oh, c’mon – there are a dozen of you who will read this post and know exactly what I’m talking about.

Well, folks are talking…

Here’s a fact pattern that would make any 1st year law student with the intent of becoming a District Attorney froth at the mouth. And every bullet is footnoted so that you don’t have to take our word for it, you can see for yourself.

*Dukes’s company, DM Dukes & Associates, gets hired by a company named Catellus Development Group sometime during or before 2006. (1)

*Catellus is the developer who is redeveloping the old Robert Mueller Airport, in Dukes’s East Austin district.(2)

*Dukes is listed on Catellus brochures as a contact. (3)

*Dukes’s company, DM Dukes & Associates is listed on the Robert Meuller web site as a contact for Catellus. (4)

*Dukes attends neighborhood association meetings, not in her capacity as a State Representative, but in her capacity as an agent of Catellus.(5)

*One of the anchor tenants and crown jewels of the new Mueller Development is The Austin Film Society. (6)

*During the legislative session in 2007, Dukes passed HB 1634, a bill that provided a mechanism for $22 million in incentives for the film industry and the Austin Film Society.(7)

*Dukes and one of her Republican pals, Rick Perry, appeared together at a press conference and bill signing ceremony at the Austin Film Studios.(8)

*Dukes issues a press release bragging about her bill that explicitly states that her bill will benefit the Austin Film Studios. “Film Incentive legislation will not only benefit the Austin Film Studios presently located at Robert Mueller in District 46 but also the planned $2.5 billion Villa Muse studio development to be located in District 46.” (9)

*Dukes potentially violates Texas House Rules and the Texas Constitution by never disclosing her personal or business interest with Catellus Development.

*Article 3 Section 22 of the Texas Constitution requires “A member who has a personal or private interest in any measure or bill, proposed, or pending before the Legislature, shall disclose the fact to the House, of which he is a member, and shall not vote thereon.”(10)

*Rule 5 Section 42 of the Texas House Rules sets out this same requirement

We are that the mainstream media has not picked up on this story!
Here you have an elected official working for a multi-million dollar developer as a consultant, who then goes and gets $22 million taxpayer dollars for an incentive program that benefits one of the developers anchor tenants.

How is that legal, moral, ethical, or right?
And I hear this isn’t the only unseemly contract…

Endnotes, links and sources:
(1) http://www.rmma.net/retail_pdfs/Mueller_LBOpacketRR.pdf
According to the document linked below, dated February 15, 2006, Dukes is working on behalf of Catellus Development Group, the same group responsible for the Robert Meuller Development project. On Page 8 of the above link, Dawnna Dukes of DM Dukes & Associates is clearly listed as the MWBE Outreach Consultant for Catellus Development Group. Her address, phone, fax and email are given.

(2) http://www.rmma.net/retail_pdfs/Mueller_LBOpacketRR.pdf and http://www.catellus.com/whats_new/news_4.aspx

EXCERPT – “November 2007, Catellus Development Group officially broke ground on November 14, 2007, on the Seton Family of Hospitals’ new headquarters at Mueller during a ceremony held near the site of Mueller’s future town center.

(3) http://www.rmma.net/retail_pdfs/Mueller_LBOpacketRR.pdf

(4) http://www.rmma.net/construction.html

EXCERPT – “For general inquiries about Catellus’ M/WBE policy and program, please contact: D.M. Dukes and Associates, dukesdm@aol.com.”

(5) I have this from a personal source who lives in her district and attended one of those meetings.

(6) http://www.rmma.net/retail_pdfs/Mueller_LBOpacketRR.pdf

On Page 3, the Austin Film Society is clearly located within the Meuller Development. On the 8th bullet – left hand side of page 3, the Film Society is clearly mentioned.

(7) In 2007, Dawnna Dukes passed HB 1634.
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=80R&Bill=HB1634
The bill set up a mechanism for $22 million in incentives for the film industry. The money was appropriated through the Trusteed Programs within the Office of the Governor – A.1.4. Strategy – Film and Music Marketing - $22 million increase relating to HB 1634. This is located on Article I page 52 of the conference committee report for HB 1. It is also mentioned in Rider 20 – Article I page 58 of the conference committee report on HB1.
http://www.lbb.state.tx.us/Bill_80/8_FSU/80-8_FSU_1007.pdf

(8) http://www.dawnnadukescampaign.com/photo-2.htm

(9) Dukes campaign continually brags about her legislative achievement in passing HB 1634.http://www.dawnnadukescampaign.com/Aboutme.html. EXCERPT “In 2007, Representative Dukes was the prime architect of legislation that will bring Texas into the forefront of the competitive Film Industry. HB 1634 by Dukes created the Texas Film Incentive program which provides an incentive to a project that produces at least 80% of it work and hires at least 70% of its workforce from Texas. Film Incentive legislation will not only benefit the Austin Film Studios presently located at Robert Mueller in District 46 but also the planned $2.5 billion Villa Muse studio development to be located in District 46.”

(10) Texas Constitution http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/txconst/sections/cn000300-002200.html

Read more on Capitol Annex

Prosecutor drops arson indictment against judge, wife

2008-01-18T14:45:00.000-08:00

By John Moritz - Fort Worth Star Telegram - Jan. 18, 2008
AUSTIN -- Indictments were dropped Friday morning against Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife in the June 28 arson fire that the destroyed the family home in the Houston suburb of Spring.

The move came one day after a grand jury in Harris County charged the couple in the fire that had been ruled arson, and one day after Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal was quoted as saying that his office did not have sufficient evidence to move forward with prosecution.

Two members of the grand jury publicly rebuked Rosenthal, telling media outlets in Houston that the justice process had been thwarted.

"I've just never seen anything like the vigor with which these two defendants were defended by the Harris County District Attorney's Office,"’ Jeffrey Dorrell, the assistant grand jury foreman, was quoted in the Houston Chronicle as saying. "It was theater of the absurd. We knew before we handed the indictment down that the district attorney was going to refuse to prosecute, but we did it anyway."

Medina's 5,000-square-foot home burned after a fire started in a detached three-car garage. Neighboring houses also sustained heavy damage, and investigators found evidence of an accelerant where the blaze started. Medina, who was serving as Gov. Rick Perry's top lawyer when the governor appointed him to the state's highest civil court in November 2004, has maintained his innocence.

"He testified before the grand jury on Oct. 31 saying that neither he nor anyone in his family had anything to do with this," Medina's attorney, Terry Yates of Houston, said Thursday night. "This comes as a real shocker. We thought this was behind us."

The indictments accused Francisca Medina of arson and David Medina of tampering with the investigation.

According to news accounts, the fire broke out in the Medinas' garage and spread to their house and two neighboring homes, causing an estimated $900,000 in damage. The Harris County fire marshal's office ruled it arson.

Investigators discovered that a year before the blaze, the mortgage holder on the Medinas' $400,000 house filed suit to foreclose after five payments had been missed, according to the reports. The suit was settled in December 2006.

In an interview with The Associated Press late last year, Yates confirmed that David Medina, who is paid about $150,000 as a Supreme Court justice, had been dealing with financial problems. The family had also failed to keep up payments on the homeowner's insurance policy, Yates told the AP.

Perry's office had no comment on Thursday's events. Medina, a Republican who won a six-year term in 2006, was a corporate lawyer for Cooper Industries in Houston and served as a state district judge in Harris County before joining Perry's administration. He is a native of Galveston and graduate of the South Texas College of Law in Houston.

The last sitting Texas Supreme Court justice to face indictment was Don Yarborough, who took office in 1977 while under charges of forgery and perjury. He resigned seven months after being sworn in. He was convicted and then fled to Grenada. Yarborough was apprehended in 1983 and returned to Texas to begin his five-year prison sentence.

Under the indictment, Medina could have faced from two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

ACTION ALERT: Tx House Committee on Transportation Public Hearing on role of MPO and Rural Planning Authorities within COGs

2008-01-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

Texas House of Represenatives Meeting Notice - Jan. 18, 2008

TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

COMMITTEE: Transportation

SUBCOMMITTEE: Planning Authorities

TIME & DATE: 10:00 AM, Wednesday, February 06, 2008

PLACE: E2.012

CHAIR: Rep. Fred Hill

The Subcommittee will meet to consider the following:

Charge #5: Examine the role of metropolitan planning authorities in state law, as well as the creation of rural planning authorities to address the planning needs outside of metropolitan planning organizations but within council of government boundaries.

Hearing on Wendy Davis' Candidacy for Sen. Distict 10 Scheduled Monday, Jan. 23

2008-01-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

By Tarrant County Democratic Party - Jan. 18, 2008
Hearing on Wendy Davis' Candidacy for Sen. Dist. 10
Scheduled for Monday, January 23rd, 11am

The Firefighters' appeal to Chairman Art Brender's decision to declare Wendy Davis eligible as a candidate in the Senate District 10 Primary will be heard by the Court of Appeals on Monday, January 23rd, at 11am.

The Hearing will take place on the 9th Floor of the Tarrant County Justice Center.

Governor's appointee indicted - Texas Supreme Court justice, wife indicted

2008-01-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

By Houston Chronicle, Jan. 17, 2008

Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife were indicted today by a Harris County grand jury in connection with a fire that destroyed their Spring home last summer, the judge's attorney said.

Medina is charged with evidence tampering, attorney Terry Yates said. His wife, Francisca Medina, is charged with arson, Yates said.

Flames gutted the Medinas' 5,000-square-foot house, destroyed a neighbor's home and damaged a third home on June 28.

In an interview last October, David Medina said he didn't know how the fire started and that he, his wife and four children were innocent.

"Nobody in my family has done anything wrong and we continue to cooperate with investigators so that this matter will come to a conclusion," David Medina said at the time.

District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said in October that David Medina was not a suspect in the arson.

Read more in The Houston Chronicle

The Supreme Court of Texas website
Justice David Medina, Place 4

Justice Medina, a former Harris County state district judge, succeeded Wallace B. Jefferson in Place 4 after Jefferson's appointment to be chief justice. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Justice Medina, who was the governor's general counsel since January 2004.

Before that, he was associate general counsel for Cooper Industries Inc. in Houston and served on the Harris County bench in 1996-2000 after appointment in May 1996 by then-Gov. George W. Bush. He was elected in November 1996 and again in November 1998.

Justice Medina was born on Galveston Island, attended public schools in Hitchcock and graduated with a bachelor science degree from Southwest Texas State University in 1980 (now Texas State University-San Marcos). In college he competed on the university's karate and baseball teams and was on the Dean's List. In 1989 he earned his law degree from South Texas College of Law. He was on the Dean's List and a member of the American Bar Association Regional Moot Court National Championship Team.

He joined Cooper Industries in 1987 and was promoted to litigation counsel upon his graduation from law school. Governor Bush appointed him to the 157th State District Court. The Houston Bar Association voted him as one of the top jurists in Harris County.

He rejoined Cooper in 2000 as associate general counsel for litigation, responsible for supervising Cooper's litigation and product-safety matters throughout the world.

Justice Medina is a former Board Member of Habitat for Humanity and Houston Metro. He currently serves on the Board for the Spring Klein Baseball Association. He is also the manager of his son's Select baseball team and has served as an adjunct professor for South Texas College of Law, where he taught advanced civil trial litigation.

His term ends December 31, 2012.

TAKS testing moved from election day to another date

2008-01-16T09:30:00.003-08:00

January 16, 2008

TO THE ADMINISTRATOR ADDRESSED:

To resolve the conflict created by having Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) assessments scheduled for March 4, 2008, the same day as primary voting in Texas, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has developed a revised testing calendar. Two changes are being made to the original schedule: first, the TAKS exit level social studies retest is being moved from Friday, March 7, to Monday, March 3; and second, the TAKS tests that were scheduled to be administered from March 4 through March 6 are now scheduled to be administered from March 5 through March 7. As a result of these changes, no test administrations will occur on the day of the primary election, Tuesday, March 4.

This new testing schedule will address the following:

Districts will not be burdened with planning the logistics of serving as testing sites and polling places on the same day and at the same location.

Moving the exit level social studies retest from Friday, March 7, to Monday, March 3, affects the fewest number of students, approximately 10,000 statewide.

Three of the four exit level retests––English language arts, mathematics, and science––will be administered one day later but in the same order as originally scheduled.

The grade 10 English language arts primary and make-up administrations are still separated by one day. The primary administration is now scheduled for March 5, and the make-up is scheduled for March 7.

The Student Success Initiative (SSI) reading administrations are now scheduled for March 5, leaving March 6, 7, and 8 for make-up opportunities.

Out-of-school examinees taking an exit level retest in March will not be negatively affected by this schedule change. Students who have already registered for one or more retests will receive a follow-up letter from Pearson with the revised test administration date(s). Out-of-school examinees who plan to register for the retest onsite and arrive at school on the originally scheduled days will be permitted to take the retest needed.

Attached to this letter are the original and revised test administration schedules for the week of March 3; in addition, TEA will update the 2007–2008 testing calendar on the Student Assessment Division website. Pearson is revising the calendar of events to reflect this schedule change and will post the new calendar as soon as possible.

The Student Assessment Division will work with district testing coordinators on a case-by-case basis if there are problems with testing on either Monday, March 3, or Friday, March 7. Districts should submit a request in writing using the Request for Alternate Dates, Modified Scheduling, and Off-site Testing form located on the TEA website at:

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/atoz/Guidelines_and_Procedures_for_Changes_to_Test_Schedule.pdf

I apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause; however, I hope that this schedule change will allow your students to demonstrate their best performance on TAKS. I believe it will also demonstrate to your students and community the importance of voting.

Sincerely,

Robert Scott

Commissioner of Education

Attachment

cc: District testing coordinators

ESC directors

ESC testing coordinators

Hutchinson defensive about border fence

2008-01-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

By Tom McGregor - The Dallas Blog - Jan. 14, 2008

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas showed an uncharacteristic display of frustration with party colleagues on Friday when she sharply criticized two Republican congressmen who had accused her of a stealth effort to derail a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Houston Chronicle reports that “conservative blogs and pundits have attacked Hutchison ever since Reps. Peter King of New York and Duncan Hunter of California accused the Texas Republican of essentially repealing Congress’ mandate to build 700 miles of fencing.”

Hutchison had been labeled a ‘Pander to the Criminal Invader’ and called a traitor to border security. But, the senator claims that the two congressmen “have been a little loose with the facts.”

Rep. King and Rep. Hunter have expressed surprise about the Hutchison amendment to the legislation requiring the border fence. Hutchison claims she notified both of them that she intended to amend the law ordering 700 miles of double-layer fencing as far back as September 2006.

Her amendment repealed parts of the 2006 law that dictated both the fence’s location and design – to the disappointment of King and Hunter, who advocate the construction of double-layer fencing to halt illegal crossings.

See article in Houston Chronicle:

Hutchison on defensive over border fence amendment

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT - Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau - Jan. 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — In an uncharacteristic display of public frustration with party colleagues, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Friday sharply criticized two Republican congressmen who had accused her of a stealth effort to derail the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Conservative blogs and pundits have attacked Hutchison ever since Reps. Peter King of New York and Duncan Hunter of California accused the Texas Republican of essentially repealing Congress' mandate to build 700 miles of fencing.

"This was a midnight massacre," King said of an amendment Hutchison shepherded into law last month. "It was absolutely disgraceful."

After being labeled "Panderer to the Criminal Invader" and called a traitor to border security, Hutchison fought back Friday.

"There is misinformation, and I think the congressmen who should know better exactly what has happened have been a little loose with the facts," she said in an interview.

"I am a little frustrated that Rep. King and I guess Rep. Hunter are feigning surprise," Hutchison said, noting that both men were notified as far back as September 2006 that she intended to amend the law ordering 700 miles of double-layer fencing.

The controversy is over an amendment that Hutchison inserted into a $555 billion spending bill that President Bush signed into law the day after Christmas.

The measure repealed the parts of the 2006 law that dictated both the fence's location and design — to the dismay of King and Hunter, who advocate the use of double-layer fencing to halt illegal crossings.

The Department of Homeland Security essentially had been ignoring the order to build double-layered fencing anyway, with only a handful of the 166 miles constructed to date comprising a fence, a patrol road in between and a second fence.

Hutchison, who insists her measure in no way jeopardizes the fence construction due to get under way in Texas in the spring, noted that similar language passed the Senate on three separate occasions last year.

What the new law does, Hutchison said, is require that the government consult with landowners and local elected officials, many of whom have felt bulldozed and ignored by the federal government as it moves ahead with its plan to build 130 miles of fencing in Texas.

"I feel like this has been a little blown out of proportion," Hutchison said.

'Full steam ahead'

The Department of Homeland Security echoed Hutchison's view that her language does not put the fence in jeopardy. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's pledge to build 370 miles by year's end is "full steam ahead," said spokeswoman Laura Keehner.

But a prominent fence critic and a coalition of Texas border officials critical of the fence argued that her measure should force Homeland Security back to the drawing board and breathed new vigor into the anti-fence revolt along the Rio Grande.

"We plan to see the Department of Homeland Security in court," said Peter Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, which may represent some Texas landowners who object to fencing on their property. ''Building the fence is back to square one."

The Texas Border Coalition cited the Hutchison measure in calling on Chertoff to retract the plans that suggest where the Texas fence will be built "to assure that the consultation is authentic."

Though the new law, which provided $1.2 billion to build the fence, directs Homeland Security officials to consult with affected local residents, it does not decree what constitutes appropriate consultation.

Homeland Security officials, who insist they have been consulting closely with border residents, reject the stance that the new law changes anything.

Hutchison herself appears to view the Homeland Security outreach effort, which included 18 town hall meetings and a dozen community briefings, as sufficient. "As far as I can tell, it's working fine," she said. "It doesn't mean they are going to do exactly what the local people request, but they have some ability to work it out."

Border policymakers offered mixed assessments of the consultation to date.

Mayor feels betrayed

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, was frustrated Thursday by new word that the government intends to build nearly one mile of fencing in his city.

Foster and the City Council thought they had fended off the fence last year in a deal with Homeland Security to cut down Carrizo cane along the river and add lighting and decorative fencing to a swath of land between two ports of entry.

"We get to an agreement in January, and a year later that doesn't count," Foster said.

But Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez was more complimentary of the department's outreach. "They have been listening to us," he said.

Hutchison, caught between a national demand for border security and Texas constituents fearful that the fence will destroy their way of life, said she is trying to steer a careful course that achieves both objectives.

"It's a difficult issue," she said.

COMMENT by FAITH CHATHAM - DFWRCC - Jan. 15, 2008
Since the esteemed Congressmen from New York and California are so concerned about securing our borders from invaders from foreign lands, before they mandate fencing along the cities and towns and ranches of southern Texas, they should propose double fencing along the California coastline and the Atlantic coast. When you plug up one hole in a container, the contents pours out other holes. If they truly could create an effective fence along the southern border of the United States, they'd need to fence in our coastlines to prevent "illegal immigrants" from becoming boat people or long distance swimmers entering on our nation's beaches.

A fence on the border will not solve immigration problems. It will be wasteful, ineffective spending. The Congressmen from New York and California are posturing and pandering to segments of their own voters.

OTHER COMMENTS on THE DALLAS BLOG:
written by lee , January 14, 2008

The fence is a nutty idea and more power to Kay for doing whatever it takes to prevent it from being built. It is a waste of money that will not work.

written by tom madrzykowski , January 14, 2008

Build a 13 foot fence and sure enough someone will have a 14 ladder.

written by HSH , January 14, 2008

I spent four days last fall on one of the largest ranches in South Texas which shares the border which Mexico. It has its own security operation, as do most if not all ranches in the Valley. They never let the Border Patrol on their property without someone from their own professional operation around. They also think the fence is a ridiculous idea. Everyone I talked to from Kingsville south thinks its a stupid idea. They say if you really want to spend money on infrastucture to try to make a difference then dredge the Rio Grande. Maybe KBH is merely trying to listen and help her constituents.

Educators fuel election chaos

2008-01-14T10:40:00.001-08:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Jan. 14, 2008
The Texas Education Agency receives my "Bonehead of the Year Award" for scheduling TAKS testing on primary election day without sending clarification to school districts that state law requires that public buildings (including schools) must accommodate elections on election day.

Across Texas County Election officials and County Chairs of both political parties are scrambling to sign election contracts while many school districts are refusing to accommodate the elections. Some counties are suing school districts to get access to the buildings. Some school districts are accommodating the elections. Others are standing firm refusing to accommodate the elections. Citizens are confused. Most news coverage is sketchy and incomplete or inaccurate.

Here is what I've learned about how educators who are charged with teaching our school children civics and government blew this one out of the water!

Some school districts wanted to delay the start of the school year for the Spring Semester. The State Board of Education is responsible for administering a "student assessment instrument and is charged in Texas Education Code Chapter 39.027 (a)(2) with adopting a schedule for administrating the end-of-course assessment.

State law was change so that the Texas public schools' spring semester could start later than last year. A change was made in the Texas Education Code 39.023(c-3) so that this year the first end-of-course assessment tests must be administered at least 2 weeks later than that they were last year.
The language in the Education Code was changed to read:
(c-3)In adopting a schedule for the administration of assessment instruments under this section, the State Board of Education shall require:
(1)assessment instruments administered under Subsection (a) to be administered on a schedule so that the first assessment instrument is administered at least two weeks later than the date on which the first assessment instrument was administered
under Subsection (a) during the 2006-2007 school year;

Texas Education Code 39.023.c-3 does not require that the TEA set the TAKS test on March 4th (election day). It merely requires that the date must be at least 2 weeks later than last year. I have phoned TEA Legal inquiring if they reviewed Texas Election Code 43.031 requiring that public buildings accommodate elections and sent information to the school districts clarifying that TAKS testing cannot hinder the accommodation of elections on election day when they scheduled TAKS testing March 4, 2008? I have not received a response yet from them.

Texas law does not require TAKS testing on March 4th (election day). TEA chose to schedule it on March 4th (one of many dates after the time stipulated by state law that the first end-of-course assessment test must be scheduled.

I think this is a very boneheaded decision by State Bureaucrats. Those who scheduled TAKS testing on election day and those who approved that schedule have thrown the election process into unnecessary chaos. Election administrators, parties, candidates are struggling to determine where the elections will be held. Some counties are suing the school districts to require them to accommodate the elections according to Texas Election Code 43.031. Others moved the elections to other sites, often at an inconvenience to the voters. (When election sites change, a percentage of voters fail to learn the new sites in time to vote - depressing electoral turnout.) Some communities simply do not have suitable alternate sites available in the precincts to hold the elections.

I sent this message to the Texas Education Agency:

You have flunked the test in citizenship and applied civics! Entrusted by the citizens of this state to teach our children about CIVICS, GOVERNMENT, PARTICIPATION in the DEMOCRATIC PROCESS, you either failed to check or chose to ignore that March 4, 2008 is a primary election day. State law requires that public buildings be made available for elections yet you chose to schedule (or approve scheduling) TAKS testing on election day. Your irresponsible, short-sighted, ignorant actions diminishes the ability of election officials and candidates to clearly communicate where the polling places will be in time for ALL CITIZENS to participate. If you allow school districts to refuse to allow the elections to be scheduled in school buildings, you are violating the law and betraying the trust of the citizens. Testing is important. Education is important. Showing our children by EXAMPLE is also important. The message you have sent is loud and clear: Elections don't really matter that much to the Texas Board of Education. Elections are an inconvenience that do not merit careful examination of dates on the calendar which ANY ELECTED OFFICIAL, POLITICAL APPOINTEE, CIVICS TEACHER, REGISTERED VOTER reserves for participating in elections.
The boneheads in your agency who scheduled TAKS testing on Election Day should be informed that it was a MISTAKE. Correct your mistake. Send a strong message to teachers, educators, pupils and your fellow citizens that your agency values our Democratic process enough to relinquish accommodate the elections on school premises March 4th. Make it a policy that all election days will be scheduled on your calendar before you begin filling in dates which are not SET BY LAW.

If you want to write them the email link to their website form is: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/tea/contact.html

I recommend that you also phone them. It is easier to ignore contact forms. When their switchboard also lights up the e-mail responses have greater impact.

The Texas Education Agency is located in the William Travis Building
1701 N. Congress Avenue
Austin, Texas, 78701

Those who oversee (and vote to fund) the TEA include:
Gov. Rick Perry - Tara Balleau (512) 799-9240 is the governor's point person on education.
In the Lt. Governor's office Andre Sheridan (512) 463-0108 is the Education Point Person.

Members of the Texas Senate Committee on Education include:

Chair of the Senate Education Committee: Senator Florence Shapiro (512) 463-0108 (972) 403-3404 - email form

Senator Royce West - (512) 463-0123 or (214) 467-0123
Senator West's education point person is Lajuana Barton lajuana_d.barton@senate.state.tx.us

Senator Kyle Janek - (512) 463-0117 (800) 445-2635
Senator Janek's point person on education is Casey Haney email: casey.haney@senate.state.tx.us

Senator Judith Zaffirini (512) 463-0121 (956) 722-2293
Her education point person is Warren von Eschenbach email: warren.voneschenbach@senate.state.tx.us

Senator Steve Ogden (512) 463-0105 His education point person is Patty Guerra
email: patty.guerra@senate.state.tx.us

Senator Leticia Van de Putte (512) 463-0126 (210) 733-6604
Her point person on education is Ida Garcia email: ida.garcis@senate.state.tx.us

Senator Tommy Williams (281) 364-9426 His point person on education is his chief of staff Janet Stieben email: janet.stieben@senate.state.tx.us

Senator Dan Patrick (713) 464-0282

I suspect that there may be attempts at TEA (if there is enough outcry)to blame some low level staffer. However, this date was set months ago. It went all the way up the supply chain and officials all the way up signed off on it. The responsiblity for ensuring that directives from the TEA complies with State Law (including State Election Code) rests with the top. The legal team should have reviewed this, conferred with the Attorney General and SOS and issued a directive to all school districts clarifying that if TAKS testing occurs on an election day, the school districts still have to accommodate the elections. The buck rests at the top. They are responsible for triggering law suits between county election officials and school districts throughout Texas, impacting every voter in Texas and sending a very bad message to our school children that elections really aren't that high a priority with this state's "Educators."

I think it is time to EDUCATE the educators.
REFERENCE: Texas Election Code 43.031
Education Code 39.023(c-3)

Definition of democracy is slippery in 17 counties

2008-01-06T10:15:00.000-08:00

By Sara Inés Calderón - San Antonio Express-News - Jan. 5, 2008

Ben Briscoe is a Republican in Democrat's clothing.
Frio County has been without a Republican Party chairman since 2005. So Briscoe said he and other conservative voters in Pearsall register as Democrats.

Otherwise, he said, they would have no way to influence local elections that have been largely decided in Democratic primaries.

For much of the 20th century, Democrats ruled the state with little or no competition. It's rare now for Texas counties not to have both parties in place, although in many places the competition is still one-sided.

Seventeen Texas counties lack a party chairman and therefore won't hold primary elections.

Legally, the primaries are set up by the county party chairmen, so Republicans can't hold primaries in the 14 counties without a GOP chairman and Democrats are likewise out of the picture in three counties in the Panhandle.

State party organizations can't do anything about it except try to recruit someone, but spokesmen for both parties said they tend to leave that to the grass roots.

"If somebody really wanted to vote in the primary, they could contact the party and we could appoint them county chair to administer the Democratic election there," said Hector Nieto of the Texas Democratic Party.

There's almost no reason to have a party chairman in counties with a sparse Republican population, said Hans Klingler, spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas, although he added that 14 empty county chairmanships was not an "optimal" situation.

This year's unpredictable presidential race makes the lack of a primary more irksome than usual for the handful of partisans who won't be able to cast a primary ballot because of where they live.

But as with Frio County, voters in counties dominated by one party are drawn to that party's primary for its local impact, whatever their underlying loyalties.

"If you're not a registered Democrat, then you don't get to participate in the political process (in Frio County) as a rule," Briscoe said. "The local elections are determined in the Democratic primaries."

Keith Dennis, pastor at Redemption Baptist Church in Devine and former Republican chairman of Frio County, agreed.

"You just about have to vote in the Democratic Party in order to have any input in who gets elected to the county," he said.

In 2005, Dennis decided he couldn't handle both his congregation and his duties as chairman, and resigned.

"I tried to get somebody in the county to take it over, but I couldn't get any response," Dennis said.

Frio County, like others in predominantly Democratic South Texas, has never really had much of a Republican presence, he said.

Both parties claim they are trying to fill the 17 vacancies, but the situation smacked of disenfranchisement to some observers.

"What does that say for democracy?" said Sharon Navarro, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

A few rural counties could make a difference in a tight statewide race, and voters in traditionally Democratic or Republican areas could cross over, influenced by everything from the war in Iraq to the housing market to immigration, she said.

"There are new variables in this election," Navarro said. "You have people who are willing to cross party lines because of war, gas prices, Social Security — all these things are coming into play."

Although the two parties are complying with state law, Richard Gambitta, also a UTSA political science professor, maintains that their actions run counter to the fundamentals of democracy.

"The parties have an obligation to provide access to the ballot to those who want to vote," he said. "Should I have any more right to choose the nominees for the Republican or Democratic ballot if I live in a Democratic area as opposed to a Republican area?"

A solution is simple, he said: The state parties could simply mail ballots to their voters in the affected counties.

Debbie Avery, originally from Frio County, helped organize the first modern-era Republican Party there in 1960. She laughed when asked if a Republican had ever been elected to office by the time she moved away in 2000.

Both she and her husband were active GOP members for 60 years, she said. Pretty much every other activist she could remember has since died.

Briscoe thinks even a Republican Party leader wouldn't change the situation in Frio County. Since he can still vote for his national choices in the November election, he wouldn't register as a Republican and risk losing his local impact.

"I don't see how this is going to change," Briscoe said. "It's been Democratic since the beginning of time, just about."

Read more in the San Antonio Express-News

State Rep. Garnet Coleman Endorses Dale Henry for Railroad Commissioner

2008-01-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

Calls Henry "Most Progressive" Candidate In The Race

HOUSTON-State Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) today announced his endorsement of Dale Henry for Texas Railroad Commissioner.

"I believe Dale to be the most progressive candidate in the race for Railroad Commissioner. Dale's plan to put environmental protection and citizen safety at the forefront of the Commission's agenda is something that should resonate with every Texan," State Representative Coleman noted.

Rep. Coleman, who has served the people of House District 147 since 1991, is the immediate-past chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and has served as the chair of the non-partisan Legislative Study Group since 2003. An outspoken, respected advocate for Texas families, Rep. Coleman said he is pleased to offer his endorsement of Dale Henry in the Democratic Primary.

"I'm very pleased to endorse Dale. With the difficult issues facing the Texas Railroad Commission today, we need someone like Dale," Coleman said.

Dale Henry, a Lampasas Democrat, has more than four decades of experience in the oil field service industry and holds a bachelors degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He has formerly served as City Manager of Lampasas, a county commissioner in Mills County, and as a member of the Lower Colorado Regional Water Planning Commission.

Henry faces Art Hall of San Antonio and Mark Thompson of Hamilton in the March 4 Democratic Primary. The winner of the March 4 Democratic Primary will face Commissioner Michael L. Williams in the general election. Photos of the press conference suitable for reprint may be obtained from the campaign by emailing media@electdalehenry.com

Texans Speak up for Dale Henry

2007-12-29T15:54:00.000-08:00

McBlogger on Dale Henry

BlueDaze on Dale Henry

Hacking Democracy - HBO U Tube Videos

2007-12-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

Hacking Democracy:

About This Video This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnera... (more)
Added: April 27, 2007
This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren't safe, then our democracy isn't safe either.
The documentary exposes the dangers of voting machines used during America's mid term and presidential elections. Electronic voting machines count approximately 90% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections. The technology is also increasingly being used across the world, including in Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and Latin America. Filmed over three years this exposé follows the investigations of a team of citizen activists and hackers as they take on the electronic voting industry, targeting the Diebold corporation.

"Hacking Democracy" uncovers incendiary evidence from the trash cans of Texas to the ballot boxes of Ohio, exposing secrecy, votes in the trash, hackable software and election officials rigging the presidential recount.

Ultimately proving our votes can be stolen without a trace "Hacking Democracy" culminates in the famous 'Hursti Hack'; a duel between the Diebold voting machines and a computer hacker from Finland - with America's democracy at stake.
The two Ohio election staff who feature in "Hacking Democracy" were sentenced on March 13th 2007 for rigging the 2004 presidential recount. Incriminating footage from the documentary was used in their court case as evidence.
http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/ (less) - By Anonimist2600

Intro:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Part 9:

One citizen can make a difference

2007-12-20T09:24:00.000-08:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Dec. 20, 2007

When government fails to adhere to its own laws and regulations, Joe Citizen holds the trump card. In Texas, Bay area resident John Cobarruvias has succeeded in prodding the Texas Ethics Commission to provide better oversight of campaign finance through filing ethics complaints. Mr. Cobarruvias is careful not to file frivilous complaints. He researches the issues, verifies the facts, and submits succinct, factual complaints to the Ethics Commission. In an era where dollars seem to dominate politics, John Cobarruvias's efforts show that one person can influence the system. John Cobarruvias is not a "grandstander". He works in the background. Occasionally he blogs on an issues. He seems to prefer to put the spotlight on the issues rather than on himself. He looks at process and the law and how Texas lawmakers and regulatory agencies apply the law and follow the the process for the benefit of all Texans. He's made headlines this week:

Activist: State's campaign finance oversight out-of-focus
By Lee McGuire- KHOU Channel 11 News - Dec. 20, 2007
It’s a state agency that spends $2 million of your dollars every year, making sure that politicians are doing the right thing when it comes to campaign finance.

John Cobarruvias claims the Texas Ethics Commission is not earning its keep.

The Texas Ethics Commission was set up to help promote confidence in government, but one man thinks taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth. The rules say we’re supposed to know exactly what every member of the Texas Legislature buys with their campaign donations. But two years ago, it seems nearly half of our elected officials broke those rules.

Then, all of a sudden, nearly all that ended. Now, lawmakers appear to be following the campaign finance rules.

The reason has very little to do with the state agency set up as a $2 million-a-year guardian of legislative ethics — and everything to do with one man, with his home computer, in Clear Lake

.
Read more on KHOU.com

AP - The Texas State Capitol

“I think the Ethics Commission is incompetent, completely incompetent,” John Cobarruvias said. “There is no other word to describe what they’re doing right now.”

He is something of an activist.

“You should have basic consumer protection,” he said.

In 2002, he was protesting the state’s oversight of homebuilders.

Now, he’s protesting the state’s oversight of the Legislature. And wondering whether the Texas Ethics Commission does anything at all. He looked at campaign finance records and found lawmakers spent about $1 million in campaign funds on their credit card bills. But nowhere did they say what they bought with those cards.

“Right,” Cobarruvias said. “You don’t know what he’s bought at all.”

It meant that tens of thousands of purchases that should have been disclosed were not. Did anyone at the Ethics Commission even notice?

“Oh, absolutely not,” Cobarruvias said. “The Ethics Commission has been absolutely worthless.”

Employees of the Ethics Commission don’t do interviews. Their chief counsel said they do audit campaign finance reports, and in the last fiscal year, the commission issued $700,000 in penalties.

Of that $700,000 total — roughly $678,000 were penalties for filing late. In other words, it often didn’t matter what was in the report, as long as it was filed on time.

“The system is very confusing and very complex,” Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said.

Sen. Dan Patrick doesn’t think the Ethics Commission needs more power.
He would like them to do a better job explaining the rules to candidates and officeholders. And he thinks it shouldn’t have taken a man in Clear Lake to uncover the million-dollar credit card problem.

“The Ethics Commission should have caught this,” Sen. Patrick said.

“It’s such a glaring problem to say you shouldn’t do this; it’s not the way it should be done.”

“This is what we want to see,” Cobarruvias said.

Since Cobarruvias raised the issue -- most lawmakers have now filed “corrected reports,” explaining what they bought with those credit cards. And most of it was run-of-the-mill: bottled water, gasoline, campaign signs.

“And I think that is just absolutely great,” Cobarruvias said. “That is what we’re looking for.”

But in some cases, he filed formal complaints with the Ethics Commission.

Since then, the Commission has fined eight lawmakers over issues he’s raised.

To put that in perspective, the Ethics Commission has only fined seven other lawmakers for any other issue in the last five years.

“They’re a database, and they collect this information and that’s about it,” Cobarruvias said.

It’s a paper trail that uncovered a problem in government — for both the people you elect and the ones you do not.

On his Bay Area Houston blog, activist John Cobarruvias responded to Senator Patrick's comments:

KHOU TV of Houston Texas had a great story (with video) on the Texas Ethics Commission:
Texas Ethics Commission called "incompetent".
Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007
“I think the Ethics Commission is incompetent, completely incompetent,” John Cobarruvias said. “There is no other word to describe what they’re doing right now.”
Yep. that is me being blunt and to the point. To be fair, the staff of the TEC has been very helpful and easy to work with. On many occasions they have provided advice and answered all our questions. And I was not the Lone Ranger. Thanks to those anonymous individuals for their help.

The problems with the lack of preventative measures is apparent when you review "Spending Campaign Cash. The Series.". Over a 2 year period almost $1Million of campaign expenditures were hidden behind credit cards and another $2Million in expenditures hidden by reimbursements to the office holder or staff.

Senator Dan Patrick, the self proclaimed champion of ethics reform, repeated the same old argument:

Sen. Dan Patrick doesn’t think the Ethics Commission needs more power. He would like them to do a better job explaining the rules to candidates and officeholders. And he thinks it shouldn’t have taken a man in Clear Lake to uncover the million-dollar credit card problem.

“The Ethics Commission should have caught this,” Sen. Patrick said. “It’s such a glaring problem to say you shouldn’t do this; it’s not the way it should be done.”
By the way, Patrick has over $73,000 in undisclosed expenditures for the last two years. This includes over $59,000 to Court Koenning Consulting for "Reimbursement". Yep, the Ethics Commission should have caught this.

And actually that is the point. The TEC has the authority to perform audits that could prevent all these problem.

§ 571.069. Review of Statements and Reports; Audits

(a) The commission shall review for facial compliance randomly selected statements and reports filed with the commission and may review any available documents. The commission shall return for resubmission with corrections or additional documentation a statement or report that does not, in the opinion of the commission, comply with the law requiring the statement or report.
But they haven't done them. The audits for all of our elected officials could easily be automated or could be accomplished with a few hours of work. It just isn't that hard. Instead the TEC recommends citizens who have performed these audits for them to file formal complaints.

This shouldn't be the process used to clean this problem up. Unfortunately the TEC claims it doesn't have the man power to perform the audits so it relies on citizens to file complaints to further stress the limited resources of the TEC.

And if this is what they want, this is what they will get come Jan 16, the day after campaign finance reports are due.

Read more on Bay Area Houston blog.

Spending Campaign Cash. The Series.
By John Coby - Bay Area Houston Blog - Monday, June 04, 2007

Over the last few months in 2006 and 2007 I have been researching campaign finance reports from Texas State Officials, concentrating on spending habits. This was a direct result of the research on State Representative John Davis (R-Houston).

Base upon this research, it is clear from the number of elected officials who have violations in their reports the Texas Ethics Commission is either incompetent, or not interested in adequately monitoring, preventing, training, or taking corrective action against those who have violated the trust of the citizens of Texas.

The TEC has a motto "Promoting Public Confidence in Government", but instead is nothing more than a repository for campaign finance information that provides little if any confidence to the public. It is near worthless.

See full article. He recaps campaign finance coverage in the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle and gives links to "Spending Campaign Cash for State Wide Officers, State Senators and Senators Elect Houston Bay/Area State Representatives.

In the DFW area, DFW Regional Concerned Citizens has been monitoring local governments websites and evaluating adherence to Local Government Chapter 176. We are concerned that the legislation passed to give citizens access to information about relationships between decision makers and those who are paid for services/contracts by government is not being followed. One of the biggest obstacles to compliance is the attitude of TXDOT. The TxDOT attorney for the Dallas region told Faith Chatham that since TxDOT is a state agency it does not have to adhere to the Local Government Code. DFWRCC's position is that TxDOT receives bids and administers contracts which require recommendations and votes by city, county and COG officials. These contracts include payments of local tax dollars. Local and regional officials are required by law (Chapter 176) to disclose their relationships with people or businesses which seek or receive payment by tax dollars and /or selected/rejected through their recommendations or vote. Since TXDOT receives and administers the bids, the failure of TxDOT to comply with Chapter 176 hinders disclosure by local and regional officials who play roles in decision making during the planning process for major infrastructure projects.

Complaints on most Texas Ethics violations goes to the Texas Ethics Commission, however, the Legislature voted to require complaints about violations of Chapter 176 to go to the local District Attorney. Since County Commissioner's Courts and Councils of Government appropriate funds and grants for law enforcement and the District Attorney's office, requiring that the complaints be filed through the local District Attorney creates a buffer of retience and self preservation. Few sane District Attorney's will eagerly pursue misdemeanor complaints against the officials who must vote to fund the District Attorney's office and law enforcement programs! We haven't filed a complaint yet. In 2008 one of our members may follow Mr. Cobarruvias' example and utilize the ethics complaint process to bring more officials and agencies into compliance with Texas Ethics Laws.

Eyes on: Media Consolidation

2007-12-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Dec. 17, 2007

I grew up in a one newspaper "Market". There were two radio stations in my hometown and we received the broadcasts of three television stations in a neighboring city. The television stations were located in another state so it had to be a big breaking story for news from my hometown to get air time.

My first job was writing for the teen page at the hometown newspaper. I also did odd jobs (pulling ads mats, running copy, pulling tears for reporters and advertisers). During the next 20 years I'd work for four major newspaper chains and several marketing/advertising agencies/creative shops. I learned some things at that first publication which seemed to remain the same over the years. Our hometown newspaper was owned by a large national media chain. I returned to work there while in college and immediately following graduation. When the paper published endorsements of political candidates, I remember there was always rumbling and an uproar in the news room. Folks would mutter: "I don't support him! Do you? Absolutely not!" The hum would continue throughout the building. The people who worked at the paper overwhelmingly supported different candidates that those endorsed by the newspaper. Endorsements were determined by the owners. Owners didn't work in our building. They didn't live in our town. We weren't important enough to have an "owner" on our staff. The "brass" rarely came to our town or passed through our building. In the 1960ies and 1970ies the influence of media owners over news coverage of elections and the endorsements of the publication was a fact noted by reporters and politicans.

The two radio stations in my hometown were owned and managed by men who frequently disagreed with each other. There were diverse veiwpoints on civic and political issues which were determined by these two long-time residents of our town. They managed the station, reported the news and directed the news staff. Even competitive newspaper staffers listened to their broadcasts because some issues just weren't covered by our publication. It was refreshing that the news they carried was not dictated by absentee corporate owners.

Media chains began to "diversify" by buying radio, television and newspapers in the same market. Laws were passed to help insure that one large corporation would not be able to control all of the media in any market. Over the years, enforcement of some of these protective rules has become more lax. The current Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, Kevin Martin, has announced that he favors media consolidation in major markets.

In 2006, many populist Democratic candidates found that they got fairer news coverage in rural Texas media than they received in the larger media markets. Most of these candidates were vehmently critical of the proposed Trans Texas Corridor. Spanish and Australian toll operators were courted by Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation for participating in this lucrative mega infrastructure project. Shortly after election day in 2006 many of the small town rural newspapers which were critical of the Trans Texas Corridor were bought by one Australian media corporation. Many of these communities are one newspaper markets. The impact of foreign ownership on these publications on local, state and national political campaign news coverage is yet to be determined.

Ownership of media influences programming and civic and political news coverage. Cutting staff to cut cost influences programming and news coverage. Filling time and space with syndicated programming eliminates local coverage.

As cable television has grown and delivery of programming has increased through the internet, some argue that there is less necessity for regulations restricting ownership of multiple media in the same market. These arguments are based on the flawed premise that citizens have access to cable and the internet. If radio, television and newspapers in the same market are controlled by the same owner, those who cannot afford cable or a computer and the internet are restricted to receiving only the news chosen by one owners.

It is important that we keep our eyes on discussion of media ownership consolidation in Congress and in the FCC.

At last week's hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on media consolidation FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's proposed rules changes for media ownership led to discussions of exercise of legislative financial checks on the FCC through appropriations and funding.

Obama, Kerry Threaten FCC Funding Over Ownership Vote

WASHINGTON -- December 17, 2007: The heat has been turned up even higher on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and his plan to have the commission vote Tuesday on his proposed changes to the FCC's media-ownership rules as Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL, pictured) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) have said they will ask the Senate Appropriations Committee to deny funding to implement the new rules if Martin goes ahead with the vote.

Last week Martin testified before the Senate Commerce Committee -- after a contentious exchange with Kerry -- that he planned to proceed with the vote on his proposal to partly relax the long-standing newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban by allowing cross-ownership in the top 20 markets if certain conditions are met.

Obama and Kerry's letter to Martin, dated December 14, says "the intent of the Senate Commerce Committee was made clear" when it passed the Media Ownership Act.

The Media Ownership Act was introduced by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) a few days before Martin's proposal was made public. It would, among other things, require the FCC to establish an independent panel on female and minority ownership and await that panel's recommendations before voting on any changes to the ownership rules. The Senate Commerce Committee passed that bill on December 4.

The letter to Martin continues, "We understand that for a variety of reasons you are being asked to postpone the vote to permit more time for the commission to fully understand how a relaxation in the cross-ownership rules will impact other important issues such as localism." A localism proceeding and study are also required by the Media Ownership Act.

"It is our hope that the sum of these objections will convince you to delay this vote until a time following the commission's consideration of other pressing matters," Obama and Kerry write. "Specifically, we believe that moving forward with this change will have a direct and detrimental impact on the state of media diversity."

The letter concludes by warning Martin, "Should you decide to move forward with this vote against the expressed bipartisan, bicameral intent of Congress, we will approach Appropriations Chairman Byrd with a request that funds be denied for the implementation of this rule."
Read more in Radio Ink

Other coverage of the exchange between Martin and members of the Senate Commerce Committee:

Commerce's FCC Hearing Gets Heated
By Radio Ink - Dec. 17, 2007
WASHINGTON -- December 13, 2007: At Thursday morning's Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing with the FCC, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), after asking the other FCC Commissioners a few questions, said to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, "Sen. [Trent] Lott, Sen. [Ted] Stevens, Sen. [Daniel] Inouye, others on the committee, with long experience on this committee, editorial comment across the country, countless organizations, countless numbers of witnesses, have all objected to the way the FCC is about to proceed" -- that is, by holding a vote on December 18 on Martin's controversial revision to the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules.

Kerry noted that the committee has asked the FCC to complete localism and diversity proceedings before allowing more media consolidation, then began what became the hearing's most contentious exchange by saying, "Who is it that created the FCC, Mr. Chairman?" Martin replied, "Congress created the FCC." To which Kerry said, "And Congress created the FCC for what purpose?" "To regulate the telecommunications and media areas," said Martin.

"In the interest of the American people," Kerry responded. "In the public interest, yes," said Martin.

Kerry continued, "The Congress has expressed its will here with respect to this potential action, has it not?"

"This committee has passed a bill out of the committee that said there should be a process in place for media-ownership reviews," Martin replied. But he added that Congress also expressed its will with the Telecom Act in 1996, which mandated periodic reviews of the media-ownership rules.

Martin had begun his earlier, prepared testimony with remarks on the uncertain financial future of the newspaper industry, and, in response to that, Kerry said, "Nowhere in the FCC rules, either in 1934 or in 1996, is there anything that suggests you have a rationale or a motivation to save newspapers."

Martin replied, "I think we have an obligation to understand what the impact that some of our rules have on the industries that we regulate" -- including the impact on newspapers of the 1975 newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban.

"The purpose of that was not with respect to the regulation of newspapers," Kerry said. "The purpose of that was with respect to the consolidation of power in the dissemination of information."

'No Absolutely Understandable Rationale'

Later, Kerry said, "You're in the middle of an analysis of diversity and localism, and, notwithstanding that your responsibility is to the public, to make sure that diversity and localism are well served, you're about to make a decision, for no absolutely understandable rationale and against the will of Congress and most of the witnesses, to actually increase the concentration, which will make worse the localism and diversity issues, without even having completed those studies."

Kerry asked Martin if he'd agree to postpone the localism vote until the studies are completed, but didn't wait for a reply.

Moving on to the waiver process for the cross-ownership rules in smaller markets, Kerry said to Martin, "It will allow you to make any kind of political decision you want with respect to the waiver." Martin pointed out that the commission has always had a waiver process and said that, with its presumption against public interest for waivers in smaller markets, his proposal is "actually tightening it."

Kerry asked FCC Commissioner Michael Copps if he agreed, and Copps replied, "I don't think we even have anything that would qualify as a waiver." The waiver conditions are, he said, "so porous as to be, I think, meaningless."

After another exchange about the newspaper industry, Kerry asked Martin about the rules vote, "Why do you choose to swim against the tide in something so important?" He went on, "It disturbs me greatly that you're so headstrong about this, with even your own commission split. Why not try to get a unanimous commission?"

Though Martin said it would be "great" if there were a consensus and said he's discussed what could lead to a unanimous approach with his fellow Commissioners, he said, "I'm not convinced that there's much prospect [of a consensus]."

With regard to the waiver process, he said he's willing to work with the other Commissioners on "what they're characterizing as loopholes." He went on, "But that would mean they'd actually have to engage in the process, not merely demand additional process and additional time over the next six to nine months."

'A Braver Man Than I Am'

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) referred in her remarks to two unreleased FCC studies that, were, she said, "shoved in a drawer because their conclusions ran counter to certain interests." The FCC Inspector General found no evidence of wrongdoing in its investigation of the disposition of those studies, but Boxer, after noting that the FCC appointed the Inspector General, said, "Well, I just want to say that this is the fox guarding the chicken coop."

Boxer said she intends to introduce legislation to have an independent Inspector General appointed for the agency. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) asked Martin if there are any circumstances under which he'd delay a vote on the ownership rules, to which Martin said it's possible, but added, "At this point, I would anticipate that we will be moving forward, and at this point, that's my plan."

After another tense exchange, with Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) concerning the release of 1,400 pages of FCC records -- Martin responded that the papers in question were either copyrighted material or "deliberative process" material that the agency is not required to release -- Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) addressed her concerns about transparency at the agency and got the agreement of each Commissioner in turn that they would not object to having all their votes made public. McCaskill ended by saying to Martin, "I will tell you, you are a remarkable public leader, if, in light of public opposition and the bipartisan opposition that you have heard today, to what you are about to do on December 18 -- if you move ahead and do it, you're a braver man than I am."

Read more on Radio Ink

Coverage of Martin's proposed rule changes:

WASHINGTON -- November 13, 2007: FCC Chairman Kevin Martin "believes that any further relaxation in the radio or television broadcast markets should not be allowed," says an FCC announcement released Tuesday morning. "He therefore proposes to make no changes to the local television 'duopoly' rule, the local radio ownership rule, and the local radio-television cross ownership rule currently in force."

What Martin is asking for is an end to the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban, but only in the top 20 Nielsen markets and only if certain conditions are met.

The conditions: A transaction must involve a major newspaper and only one TV or radio station. If it's a TV station, there must be at least eight independently owned and operating major media voices (defined as including major newspapers and full-power commercial TV stations) in the DMA after the transaction, and the TV station must not be among the top four ranked stations in the DMA.

"All other proposed newspaper-broadcast transactions would continue to be presumed not in the public interest," says the FCC.

The FCC would also consider the level of media concentration in the market, evidence that the combined entity would increase the amount of local news in the market, commitments by the newspaper and broadcast outlet to continue to exercise independent news judgment, and the financial condition of the newspaper. In the case of a newspaper in financial distress, the commission would look into the owner's commitment to investing in newsroom operations.

The change is designed primarily to aid a newspaper industry that's struggling with the explosion of new media outlets.

In a New York Times op-ed, published Tuesday and distributed with the FCC announcement, Martin writes, "At least 300 daily papers have stopped publishing over the past 30 years. Those newspapers that have survived are struggling financially."

After citing some statistics on declining newspaper circulation and the rise of other media, Martin says, "If we don’t act to improve the health of the newspaper industry, we will see newspapers wither and die."

Martin goes on to describe his proposal, then continues, "This relatively minor loosening of the ban on cross-ownership of newspapers and TV stations in markets where there are many voices and sufficient competition to allow for new entrants would help strike a balance between ensuring the quality of local news while guarding against too much concentration."

The FCC is inviting public comment on Martin's proposal; comments are due by December 11.

Most immediately affected by Martin's proposed rules change would be Tribune Co., which is in the process of going private in a sale to Chicago real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell. Tribune has grandfathered exemptions to the newspaper-broadcast ban in several markets, which, under the old rules, would not be passed on to Zell without special waivers.

Under Martin's proposal, Tribune's new owner could be able to hang on to its newspaper and broadcast properties in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami -- but not in Hartford, which, as Hartford-New Haven, is Nielsen market 29.

ACTION ALERT: Comments for Sunset Review of TxDOT due by Jan. 7, 2008

2007-12-06T16:52:00.001-08:00

December 5, 2007
Dear Recipient:

The Sunset Advisory Commission would like your help in reviewing and improving the State’s transportation system. The Legislature, through the Texas Sunset Act, has charged our Commission with reviewing the mission and performance of the Texas Department of Transportation.

In general, the Sunset Commission periodically evaluates state agencies to determine if the agency is needed, if it is operating effectively, and if state funds are well spent. Based on the recommendations of the Sunset Commission, the Texas Legislature ultimately decides whether an agency continues to operate into the future. Additional information on the Sunset Commission can be found on our website.

As part of this agency’s review, we seek the input of organizations and individuals who have an interest in the agency. Please take some time to comment on the attached preliminary issues identified by the Sunset Commission staff as potential research areas. Also, let us know of other issues of interest to you or your organization. Feel free to share copies of this e-mail and the attachment with any others who may have an interest in the Texas Department of Transportation. To help ensure the free flow of information, anything submitted to Sunset staff during the review until the staff report is released is confidential, and will not be shared with anyone outside of Sunset staff.

To give the staff time to consider your information during our review of the Texas Department of Transportation, we request you send your response by Monday, January 7, 2008. Please mail, e-mail, or fax your comments to the address or fax number provided in the attached Preliminary Issue List. Also, if you need more information or have questions about our process, please contact Jennifer Jones at (512) 463-1300. We greatly appreciate your assistance and look forward to hearing your ideas.

Sincerely,

Ken Levine
Deputy Director
Sunset Advisory Commission

Action Alert: Contact your congressman to avert windfall profits going to polluters

2007-10-30T13:17:00.001-07:00

By Move-On Org - Oct. 22, 2007It's looks pretty clear that some kind of pollution credit system will be created soon to try to get a handle on the climate crisis. Polluting industries are trying to turn that legislation into a massive program of corporate subsidies. Their plan--giving away the credits for free to big polluters--punishes new companies and companies who got a jump on cleaning up their act.

But a full public auction makes sure that everyone plays fair by charging them equally to pollute and raises money to help pay for America's transition to the clean energy economy. Most of the Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the public auction--which means industry is in a hurry to lock up the other system while we still have this President and this Congress.

I just signed a petition to ask our Congress to make sure any climate legislation has a public auction to sell pollution credits. Signing a petition may not feel like a lot. But it's a first step. And there's a lot at stake--$50 to $150 billion. Enough money to help all Americans transition to a clean energy economy. Our representatives need to hear clearly that we care about this issue.

Can you join me by signing the petition?

Jim Hightower Comments

2007-10-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Used by permission of Jim Hightower - The Hightower Lowdown

Each doing a little combined makes a lot

2007-10-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - Oct. 29, 2007
In today's Fort Worth Star Telegram Anna Tinsley wrote about how small donors are playing a big role in fundraising for the 2008 Presidential race. With campaigns costing gigantic amounts these days, most of us feel helpless. It is difficult to comprehend how what ordinary working folks or retirees or college students can contribute which will make a substantial difference.

However, the reality is that what we have to offer truly can make the difference between a candidate's race getting off the ground and staying alive and it fizzling and dying before anyone notice.

Tinsley wrote:

Kerry Bouchard knew it was just a drop in the bucket.

But the Fort Worth man wanted to help Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, so he sent $50 to the campaign last month.

"I felt I needed to try to do what little I could to influence the presidential race," said Bouchard, 46, a librarian at Texas Christian University. "Sometimes it seems hopeless because there's so much money involved."

But his $50, added to someone else's $25, plus someone else's $35, eventually adds up.

In the 2008 presidential primary campaign, it seems that the smallest donors are gaining a larger voice.

Millionaries and billionaries giving large donations is viewed by many people as one of the problems in American politics. It is difficult for an elected official needing large amounts of money to run media advertising and to pay consultants and other campaign expenses to ignore the agendas of large donors.

Thus far this year it appears that the trend is for smaller donors to carry more of the load toward financing campaigns.

Tinsley wrote of donors giving $50 or less:

Nationwide, those donors have contributed more than 21 percent of money raised by presidential candidates.

In Tarrant County, more than half of donors gave less than $500. Just 22 percent gave $2,000 or more, according to a Star-Telegram analysis of new campaign finance records.

"Two-thirds of the donations", writes Tinsley, "have come from large donors."

Jeff Classen's researched campaign returns of Presidential candidates and analyzed Tarrant County Donors. His research shows:
Rudi Giuilani has receieve more donations over $2,000.00 than any other presidential candidate. He comes in 5th in number of donors under $2000.00. Republican candidates lead in the top 4 spots in the number of donations over $2000.00 from Tarrant County.
Democrats lead in the top number of donations from donors under $2000.00 in Tarrant County.

Number of donors over $2000.00 from Tarrant County:
1. Republic Rudy Giuliani 103
2. Republican Mitt Romney 54
3. Republican Fred Thompson 51
4. Republican John McCain 42
5. Democrat Hilliary Clinton 39
6. Democrat John Edwards 29
7. Republican Huckabee 25
8. Democrat Barack Obama 11
9. Republican Ron Paul 9
10. Democrat Bill Richardson 7
11. Democrat Chris Dodd 2

Democrats lead with the number of donors under $2000.00 from Tarrant County.
1. Democrat Barack Obamba 173
2. Democrat Hilary Clinton 130
3. Democrat John Edwards 128
4. Republican John McCain 125
5. Republican Mitt Romney 101
6. Republican Rudy Giuliani 88
7. Republican Ron Paul 57
8. Republican Fred Thompson 53
9. Republican Tom Tancredo 44
10 Democrat Bill Richardson 36
11. Republican Mike Huckabee 16
12. Republican Duncan Hunter 14
12. Democrat Joe Biden 14
13. Sam Brownback 6
14. Democrat Chris Dodd 3
15. Republican John Cox 2
15. Democrat Dennis Kucinich 2
Source: Federal Elections Commission, Star-Telegram analyzis by Jeff Claussen

During the 2006 Attorney General's race, Democrat David Van Os raised most of his money from donors who gave under $1000.00. On-line donations and people on the grassroots pooled their money and financed outdoor advertising for the Van Os Campaign. All of the down-ticket Democratic challenger were financially challenged. All except Dale Henry and Fred Head (who self-financed their campaigns) relied on small donors to help keep gasoline in their tanks and pay travel expenses as they traveled the state trying to meet as many voters as possible in towns and cities all over Texas. They were unable to compete in the larger markets where Republican incumbents warchests financed media advertising blitz the last few weeks of the campaign.

Candidates found ways to cut corners on campaign headquarters. Most of the down-ticket Democratic challengers last year utilized skilled volunteers working from virtual offices in key slots usually filled by paid campaign staff and consultants. Van Os and Maria Luisa Alvarado shared campaign headquarters in the Van Os Law Firm Building in San Antonio. Sometimes they car-pooled to events and shared on-the road meals of sandwiches and fruit packed at home from coolers in the car while they coordinated their campaigns from cell phones and laptop computers. Hank Gilbert had some hired staffers but ran his campaign from his pick-up by cell phone as he drove from town to town. They connected with the grassroots and their supporters were volunteered as many hours as many paid staffers normally work in better financed campaigns.

They proved that candidates can fight smart campaigns, connecting with the grassroots, in Texas. However, in a state this big, without money to combat end-of- election-cycle television and radio campaigns of their opponents in the major urban markets, they lose too many votes from the fringe or swing voters who are not party activists. It is difficult (probably impossible) to wage as aggressive a people to people style campaign while spending the normal half day on the phone calling potential donors that most consultants demand of candidates.

For Democratic challengers to regain offices in Texas, more donors need to give money without getting a telephone call from the candidate. Underdogs need money but they also need votes. To get votes, they need to connect with people. If the political landscape in Texas is going to change significantly, Texans on the grassroots must continue to take responsiblity for generating resources for charmastic, dedicated, qualified, educated candidates.

For Democrats challengers or populists to regain the Texas Turf, by winning state executive offices and judicial, house and senate and US House and Senate seats, and for Democratic presidential candidates to prevail, volunteers and small donors must unite to fill the gap between donations from millioniare and billionaires which traditionally bankroll Republicans and incumbents. They must also raise enough money to run media in major markets to reach voters who do not go to political events.

For Democrats to regain the Texas Turf, more people have to care enough to give a little and to volunteer a little. More Texans have to care enough to learn where the candidates stand on issues and go vote. This is a year when major changes can be made in the politican landscape in the USA and in Texas. It will happen only if small donors contribute what they can and a few larger donors steps up and helps push the campaigns over the top.

TxSharon writes: Will Sen. Estes Investigate the RRC for Malpractice?

2007-10-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite writers, TXSHARON shows the DUTIES of the Texas Railroad Commission, their failures and pins the Chair of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources to the wall demanding "WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT?" She cites specific instances of corruption and incompentency which endangers the citizens of Texas.

By TxSHARON - Texas Kaos - Oct. 19, 2007
Read: Will Sen. Estes Investigate the RRC for Malpractice.

One of my favorite bands -- The Ackerman's of Texas - performs this weekend

2007-10-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - Oct. 26, 2007
Listen to the Ackerman's

They will appear Saturday, Oct. 27th (6:30-9:30 p.m.) at Lake Highlands/Whiterock Democrats Chili Supper. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez will be the keynote speaker. The event will take place at DanceMasters at 10675 E. NW Highway.
Intersection is Plano Rd. DanceMasters is on the second floor left of the Kroger.
Admission is $10.

I really like their video.

ACKERMAN's VIDEO: Take Me Back to Amarillo

TURF prevails as Judge grants continuance, allows discovery - TURF attorneys may depose top TxDOT officials

2007-10-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

(Editor's Note by Faith Chatham: Even though this is my personal blog and is not affiliated with TURF, I am thrilled that T.U.R.F. was granted a continuance in its lawsuit on behalf of all of us with TxDOT. Here is San Antonio Toll Party founder and T.U.R.F. executive director Terri Hall's account.)
By Terri Hall - T.U.R.F. - Oct. 18, 2007
Austin, TX – Thursday, October 18, 2007 - In Travis County District Court today, Judge Orlinda Naranjo granted Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) a continuance allowing TURF to move to the discovery phase and depose top Transportation Department (TxDOT) officials, including Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson himself. Allowing discovery is vital for TURF to force TxDOT to hand over key documents that they’ve been withholding via Open Records requests. TURF is seeking to immediately halt the illegal advertising campaign and lobbying by TxDOT (read petition here).

The State was attempting to throw us out of court with their favorite “get out of jail free” card (called the plea to the jurisdiction), but TURF’s attorneys, Charlie Riley, David Van Os, and Andrew Hawkins outmaneuvered Attorney General counsel Kristina Silcocks to file a motion for a continuance to allow TURF to move to the discovery phase to gather evidence to show TxDOT’s top brass broke the law with the Keep Texas Moving (KTM) ad campaign and lobbying Congress to buyback interstates.

“This is a great victory for Texas taxpayers!” an elated Terri Hall, TURF’s Founder and Executive Director proclaimed. “This egregious misuse of $9 million of taxpayer money by a rogue government agency is one MAJOR step closer to being stopped.”

The tide seemed to turn when Riley showed the affidavit by TxDOT’s Helen Havelka was false. TURF uncovered this August 13, 2007 memo by Coby Chase (read it here) through an Open Records request showing the Keep Texas Moving campaign was not over and in fact it has multiple phases planned with the next one fashioned to influence the upcoming Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) hearings planned for early 2008.

With a clear attempt to mislead the court by causing Judge Naranjo and the public to believe the KTM Campaign was over when in fact it isn’t, the State’s credibility and case went downhill from there.

“I wonder what TxDOT’s top brass is saying tonight as they’re being informed they’ve now been added as defendants and may be deposed under oath about their lobbying and ad campaign activities,” pondered Hall. “My guess is the phones are ringing and the paper shredders may just get fired-up."

This lawsuit is brought pursuant to § 37, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. TxDOT’s expenditure of public funds for the Keep Texas Moving campaign is illegal, and an injunction prohibiting any further illegal expenditures in this regard.TxDOT has violated § 556.004 of the Texas Government Code by directing the expenditure of public funds for political advocacy in support of toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, and have directly lobbied the United States Congress in favor of additional toll road programs as evidenced in its report, Forward Momentum.

On Monday, September 24, Judge Naranjo did not initially grant a temporary restraining order (TRO). TxDOT unearthed a law that says they can advertise toll roads (Sec 228.004 of Transportation Code) and the citizens invoked another that says they can’t (Chapter 556, Texas Government Code). The burden to obtain a TRO is higher than for an injunction.

“TxDOT is waging a one-sided political ad campaign designed to sway public opinion in favor of the policy that puts money in TxDOT’s own coffers. School Boards cannot lobby in favor of their own bond elections, and yet TxDOT cites its own special law to line their own pockets at taxpayers’ expense,” says an incredulous Terri Hall, Founder/Director of TURF.

Hall also notes that TxDOT’s campaign goes beyond mere advertising, “It’s propaganda and in some cases, the ads blatantly lie to the public! In one radio ad, scroll down to radio ad “continuing maintenance”), it claims it’s not signing contracts with non-compete agreements in them and yet last March TxDOT inked a deal with Cintra-Zachry for SH 130 (read about it here) that had a non-compete clause (which either prohibits or financially punishes the State for building competing infrastructure with a toll road).”

On August 22, 2007, TURF filed a formal complaint with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate TxDOT’s illegal lobbying and asked him to prosecute TxDOT for criminal wrongdoing. See the formal complaint here. The petition seeks immediate injunctive relief in a civil proceeding.

Updates to TURF’s petition and supplemental affidavits will be posted soon.

Contact info for TURF's attorneys:
Charlie Riley - 210-225-7236
David Van Os - 210-821-1700
Andrew Hawkins - 512-477-2320
David Rogers - 512-301-4097

techni

2007-10-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

Technorati Profile

Texas needs qualified men and women of integrity in public service

2007-10-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

By Faith Chatham - Oct. 9, 2007
Fielding candidates for public office who are unsuited for the job is counter productive to the welfare of the people of Texas. Selecting nominees who who can be "sold to the public" but who are incapable of functioning effectively once in office is detrimental bad political policy. This state has suffered through the incompetence of Susan Combs while she was Agriculture Commission and currently as State Comptroller of Public Accounts, she is an embarrashment. (Refusing to recognize the standards of public accounting, she urged lawmakers to vote that Texas would not comply with GAP!)

We have witnessed the Republican field ill-prepared individuals for stategic offices. Now the some Democrats are attempting to place the wrong candidate in the Rail Road Commission. Art Hall of San Antonio, an attorney/investment banker, who is Vice President of Banco Popular, an international corporation with vast financial holdings in many nations, has announced his intention of challenging Dale Henry in the Democratic primary for Rail Road Commissioner.

Hall has no professional credential which allow him to understand the complexities of oil and gas production/regulation. His background as an attorney is not in this field. His profession experience is not in mineral/energy production/regulation and unlike Henry, Hall is not trained as a petroleum engineer. Although Hall is a Harvard grad, he is a light weight when compared to Dale Henry when it comes to the experience, professional background, technical understanding and education required to exercise the responsibilities of this office with excellence.

Dale Henry has over 50 years training and experience as a petroleum engineer and businessman. He has developed tools which have revolutionized the oil industry. He is a man of integrity. He believes in reasonable regulation of the oil and gas industry. He values the integrity of neighborhoods and believes that oil/gas resources in Texas should be developed without compromising the water, health and welfare, and residential nighborhoods. Dale Henry's professional experience and education enables him to understand the processes and tools available in the oil and gas market which can jeporadize or benefit Texans. He knows what safeguards are needed and what regulations/processes are unnecessary. He's been around the block in the energy field several times and knows the landscape and the tricks and pitfalls.

He has been advising Texas homeowners of these pitfalls without renumeration. He is a champion, fighting to protect the property rights of Texans from exercise of eminent domain for private gain. He has traveled this state testifying at Texas Department of Transportation Hearings all over Texas.

Texas needs Dale Henry on the Rail Road Commission. Pipelines are a major facet of the proposed Trans Texas Corridor. Dale Henry opposes the Trans Texas Corridor. Art Hall is the husband of an attorney for Valero Energy. Valero Energy donated over $111,342.32 from November 2002 through December 2006 to Texas Legislators and Congressional candidates/incumbents PAC. All went to Republicans except for $2,000.00 which went to Paula Hightower-Pierson, a freshman Democrat from Arlington whose huband was a delegate to the National Republican Convention which nominated George W. Bush as President of the USA. Hightower-Pierson has a consistent records while on the Arlington City Council of supporting exercise of public domain for the private profit of George W. Bush. She celebrated when citizens of Arlington were taxed to build the Texas Ranger's stadium. When George W. Bush sold the Rangers he made the first profit he'd ever shown in any of his business enterprises. Valero, which probably hopes to have an interest in the pipelines associated with the Trans Texas Corridor, has contributed over $20,000.00 to Tom Craddick in the past two years.

Dale Henry is not pursuing any business which will involve proposed pipelines. He is not seeking to capitalize by stripping Texans of their farms, ranches, homes and businesses to build the NAFTA Super Highway. His wife is not an attorney with Valero Energy, which has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Republican campaigns attempting to gain favor in future infrastructure projects and energy regulations.

Dale Henry has the right skill/education set.
Art Hall has active ties with special interests which should not have representation in the Rail Road Commission, the agency in Texas charged with regulation oil and gas/mineral production in Texas.

The Railroad Commission should not be filled with people with ties to ambitions international corporates. Representatives of companies seeking to profit from the decisions of the Commission should not be nominated by either political party. Citizens of Texas along all of the political spectrums should examine the affiliations of those seeking to regulate this state's energy market, production and/or delivery infrastructure. Along with the PUC and State Legislature, the Texas Railroad Commission sets policies which ultimately shifts the wealth of citizens of Texas from various pocketbooks. Right now utility bills of individuals and businesses is shifting a lot of dollars from everybody's bank accounts into those of a few. Railroad Commission policies sets safeguards during exploration and production. The PUC's policies (set through Legislation)impacts utilities and consumers.