Monday Roundup: History Edition

In case you were wondering how some past Speakers feel about Craddick's shenanigans, Pete Laney would like you to know that he doesn't really agree with a lot of the logic put forth by the man from Midland.

In an interview with Mary Madewell in the Paris News, former Speaker Laney examined some of the finer points:

“The 10 years I was speaker I never thought they (elected representatives) couldn’t get rid of me,” Laney said Thursday during a telephone conversation.

I feel like most people are going to come down on Laney's side of the argument, when it is all said and done.

Governor Perry continues to take heat for his latest infamous veto on community college funding. A Houston Chronicle editorial details the damage to Texas' higher education drive, while Clay Robison ponders whether Perry's veto might poison the pool for Republicans across Texas in 2008.

Robison brings up another interesting point about vetoes from a historical perspective. Apparently, this year's round of vetoes put Perry on top among governors in the modern era in that category. He also mentions an interesting side note which tells us a thing or two about Republican relationships at the top:

As counted by the Legislative Reference Library, Perry's 208 vetoes, which include items struck from appropriations bills, put former Gov. Bill Clements in second place at 192.

Clements, a Republican who served two full terms, was governor when Democrats still had a majority of the Legislature. With a GOP legislative majority now, Perry, in many instances, has been striking down the work of his fellow Republicans.

In any estimation this is a curious, or at least unusual, situation.

The National Guard, deployed a while ago to increase security along the Texas-Mexico border, are taking off. El Paso's number will be reduced from about 1,500 to some 900, although that could increase in the next few years seeing as how border security money is in line for a huge bump. This is going to become more of a political issue as we get nearer the election and immigration reform gets kicked around.

Speaking of the election, the AP says that more Republicans are getting behind a plan to restrict military ops in Iraq to counterterrorism. It is a purely GOP idea for the moment, and AP points out this is a policy solution for republicans who would like to get away from the war without supporting a full out withdrawal. It probably won't end up on the table for serious consideration until after the September report turns out the way you think it will.

If you need a little public health / biological scare with your Monday morning coffee, check this out: medical facilities in Austin have begun testing patients for a drug-resistant superbug and "isolating patients" found to be carrying it. When was the last time we had a good statewide pandemic emergency preparedness exercise?

Oh hey, Chris Dodd has a universal health care plan. Pretty much every Democratic candidate will have one, the same as every Republican candidate will come out against the war. I would just like to remark that I feel encouraged by a universal health care plan being the must-have campaign item this election season.

Finally, if you're interested in the details of Constitutional debate over whether and how a cabinet secretary can be impeached, especially when that cabinet secretary runs the Justice Department, you should visit Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, for his treatment on the subject. It is a really good read. In reference to the New York Times' call for Gonzales to be impeached and according to Marshall, no cabinet secretary has ever been removed from office by impeachment, but there's always a first time for everything, I guess.