Friday Roundup: Chairman Richie Stomps The Yard

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie earns a gold star for his raucous zinger at a rally yesterday. Richie was talking about his disappointment that Republican leadership in the House dropped the ball on increasing funds for higher education and changing the primary date.

Told the change would have boosted "down ballot" Democrats, he laughed and asked, "What's the matter?

"Are the Republicans ashamed of the top of their ticket?"

Speaking of primaries, the Star-Telegram has a short editorial on some confusion over the date. Despite all the talk you heard everywhere about the date potentially changing (here included), it did not actually happen; the primary will still be in March. I expect someone might try to resurrect the date change bill if there ends up being a special session, but who knows. There will be other bills that are better suited to grandstanding should the Lege have to reconvene.

That didn't take long. The expected followups to Lampson's announcement that he wouldn't be seeking the Democratic nomination to run against John Cornyn were, in the following order: 1) a story about who would be seeking that nomination; and 2) a story about Lampson's possible Republican challengers for his Congressional seat. The Chron delivers the news that David Wallace and Paul Bettencourt are not running for Congress, and fills you in on who is.

I was not surprised to see any of the names listed — despite being in DC barely long enough for Tom DeLay's staff to walk out on her, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs will run for the seat again. Maybe she thinks that if she starts out with new people from scratch she'll have better results. The Chron piece also lists State Reps Charlie Howard and Robert Talton, former Cornyn staffer Pete Olson, and Dean Hrbacek as contenders. There may be a dollar or two spent by Republicans in that primary.

This did surprise me, however: President Bush has a plan for this global warming thing, and he wants to invite everyone over to talk about it. From an administration that has in the past regularly undercut or obscured scientific findings about climate change and global warming, this is quite a shock. Maybe this seems like an issue that he can earn some brownie points on.

John Edwards would like to do something about those high gas prices. He's calling on the Justice Department to investigate if recent oil company mergers are the cause for your having to spend $80 to fill up your Fiat. I applaud this move, though it's a shame this has to go through the Justice Department, in light of their recent troubles. Seriously, all these reports about people threatening to resign makes it sound like a bad PTA meeting.

If you're into this sort of thing, MSNBC has an excerpt from Carl Bernstein's new book on Hillary Clinton. I always forget what an engaging writer he is. I had zero interest in reading that book until I read this story, and now I may pick it up.

Lastly today: one of my favorite aspects of the Internet is the immediate letter-to-the-editor quality. Sometimes that is also my least favorite aspect, but in cases like this, it works out: Statesman asks how you, The Reader, feel the Texas Legislature did this session. There are some great responses. My favorite so far, just for the sheer urgency of it:

By ed
May 31, 2007 9:19 AM | Link to this
Did we or did we not get approval for three more unneeded prisons?!