Wednesday Roundup - A Strategic Retreat From Hardcore Lobbying

Rick Perry has had a couple of bad days. From Gardasil to coal plants, he is meeting resistance, and things are tough all over.

Merck had been engaging in a lobbying effort to get states all over to require Gardasil for their young girls. When I was first learning about how government worked, I thought this kind of thing was weird, but lobbying is lobbying and it is what it is. When a pharmaceutical company lobbies for one of its products, they throw resources into the effort, including studies, publicity, and lawyers. Now that Merck is pulling its lobbying efforts, not only does it imply that they'll be less engaged, it looks bad for the whole deal.

So that was some bad news, but the news that Perry's fast-track order for coal plants was blocked is higher profile. It is a direct judicial rebuke in which the judge even specifically said that "the governor lacks the authority" to fast-track the plants. The response must be carefully calculated on Perry's part; he can't have Robert Black running amok and saying things about liberal judges and whatnot.

Speaking of liberal judges, anyone who's familiar with the Texas court system knows it is sometimes an inefficient machine. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson called yesterday for an overhaul of the court system, in an effort to even out the workload and draw some jurisdictional lines that make more sense. Oh, those liberal judges. Some judges may actually not be crazy about the idea, because it will literally reshuffle jurisdictions and may take influence away from some courts while plying others with it.

Here's something I didn't expect out of Texas, but is nice to see, especially since Democrats are representing: State Rep. Elliot Naishtat and State Senator Royce West have introduced legislation which would make wanton violence against the homeless a hate crime. CNN had this bit yesterday about how murders of homeless people have increased recently, and they even termed it "sport-killing," which is a disturbing idea. Florida is considering legislation similar to Naishtat and West's.

If you absolutely have to go to jail, try not to do it in Harris County. According to this report in the Chron, 101 inmates have died there in the last six years. Jails are difficult things for civilized society to reconcile — necessary things, but still difficult.

I got a couple of phone calls yesterday when this story about Tony Blair pulling the troops from Iraq came out, and while I wasn't expecting it to happen now, I'm not surprised at all. If you think public opinion has turned against the war here at home, you should check out a Prime Minister's Question Time and see what a really angry set of representatives looks like. This is bad for President Bush and the surge, because the greatest ally of the US in the war is going home for totally sensible reasons.

Finally this morning, Mitt Romney is being pro-active on an issue he would otherwise get destroyed on: abortion. The former Governor of Massachusetts, who has had at least couple of positions on abortion, sent out an email accusing John McCain of being a do-nothing Pro-Life legislator. I'm not really sure what to say about this in polite settings other than "Wow." Those of you familiar with my spoken vocabulary can imagine the more colorful version.