Travis Precinct 211

As a follow-up to Back Story on SBOE Place 10
I am pleased to join the Texas Republican Assembly in endorsing Brian Russell for the State Board of Education place 10. Brian has a keen understanding of Education policy, a history of leadership for Republican causes, and the skill to write good policy. It is not enough to be able to vote for good policy. If Republicans are going to lead, we need people who can write good policy that is worth voting for. Brian Russell provides that ability with documented experience.

The Texas Railroad Commission is the State Agency with the least-useful name. In reality, the Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads. It has everything to do with oil, gas, coal, and uranium mining in Texas. In essence, except for electricity, it is the commission that most deals with energy policy. In a recent gubernatorial debate, it was suggested that the elected Railroad Commission be merged with the appointed Public Utility Commission to form a single entity with oversight of energy policy. I would heartily endorse such a move, as long as the commissioners remain elected instead of appointed.
There are three elected commissioners over the Railroad Commission, serving staggered terms. One position is up for election this year, and I am endorsing Victor Carrillo for Re-Election as Railroad Commissioner.
Victor Carrillo is the current Chair of the Texas Railroad Commission. He has had an exemplary record on the commission, fighting for sensible energy policies. He is also a man who shares our Republican values. As an example, he testified before the Travis County Health District board, asking them to discontinue the barbarous practice of using tax-payer funds for abortions against the conscience of many concerned citizens. On energy policy, he has fought against cap-and-tax and carbon-capture legislation.
The other two commissioners on the railroad commission are Michael Williams and Elizabeth Ames Jones. Both of them are expected to resign to run for the US Senate should Kay Bailey Hutchinson be so kind as to keep her promise to resign after the primary. As the purpose for staggered terms is to maintain continuity on the commission, I do not feel that this would be an appropriate time to replace a respected member.
Carrillo’s opponent, David Porter, is running in order to obtain a “bully pulpit” from which he can raise awareness of the dangers of cap-and-tax legislation. He does have some political experience, serving as a treasurer for various PACs associated with school-choice vouchers. But he is not really a known entity, where we can be certain of the direction that Victor Carrillo will continue to take the Railroad Commission during these turbulent times.

The Supreme Court of Texas is the highest Civil court in Texas. There are 9 justices. Two Justices have recently retired or announced retirement. As such, place 3 and place 9 are “open seats”.

The composition of the balance of the court is:

• Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson had 7 years experience as an appellate lawyer before joining the court in 2004.
• Place 2: Don Willett had 6 years experience as a prosecutor before joining the court in 2005.
• Place 4: David Medina had 4 years of District Court experience and six years experience as a litigator before joining the court in 2004
• Place 5: Paul Green had 10 years of appellate judicial experience before joining the court in 2004.
• Place 6: Nathan Hecht had 5 years of District Court experience, and 2 years of appellate judicial experience before joining the court in 1988.
• Place 7: Dale Wainwright had 3 years of District Court experience before joining the court in 2002
• Place 8: Phil Johnson had 23 years experience as a litigator, and 7 years of appellate judicial experience before joining the court in 2005

The Governor recently appointed Eva Guzman to fill a vacancy on place 9. Justice Guzman has 8 years of appellate judicial experience.
Rose Vela is also running for the place 9 position. She has 12 years of district court experience, and 4 years of appellate judicial experience, in addition to 12 years serving as a trial and appellate lawyer. In addition to significant civil law experience, she also has criminal law and family law experience.

The court contains a mixture of people with experience in District, Appellate, Litigator, and Prosecutor roles. Place 3 provides a microcosm of those roles. There are six candidates running for that position.

• Rebecca Simmons has 20 years experience as a trial and appellate lawyer, as well as 5 years of appellate judicial experience.
• Jeff Brown has 6 years experience on the District court level, and 2 years of appellate judicial experience.
• Debrah Lehrmann has 22 year of experience on the District court level. In addition, she annotates the Family Law code, reviewing each of the family law cases that are decided at the appellate and supreme court levels. Her decisions have seldom been overturned at the appellate level.
• Rick Green has 4 years experience as a State Legislator. He has spent the past ten years speaking on Constitutional History and Law.
• Jim Moseley has 10 years of appellate judicial experience. He has authored over 1000 opinions.
• Rick Strange has 5 years of appellate judicial experience. He has authored over 400 opinions.

I have talked personally with three of these candidates: Rick Green, Jim Moseley, and Debra Lehrmann. Each of these have been endorsed by people that I trust. They all have long records of in-the-trenches work for the Republican party.
This race will almost certainly go into a runoff election in April. For the primary, the decision of whom to endorse is a difficult one. It mainly comes down to what sort of experience you want to add to the Supreme Court.
Jim Moseley has significant experience in writing complex business legal opinions. That is the bread-and-butter of the court, and he would serve well in that role.
Debra Lehrmann has significant experience in Family Law. Although little-used a the Supreme Court level, it is a distinct gap in the experience at the Supreme Court. The recent cases involving the Yearning for Zion ranch found the Supreme Court ill prepared, and Judge Lehrmann was encouraged to run for the Supreme Court to fill that gap.
Rick Green has a different perspective, as a former legislator, on the law. His knowledge of the US Constitution and the founding fathers is unparalleled among the sitting court members or his fellow candidates. I believe he would bring a unique perspective in interpretation. I also think he would be the least ready on “day one” to author opinions.

In my opinion, I would opt to add Rose Vela and Rick Green to the court. I believe that would add the most diversity of opinion and would yield, in the long run, a stronger court. While I appreciate Judge Moseley’s experience, it is similar to the bulk of the court – complex, civil court cases dealing with business law. I also appreciate Debra Lehrmann’s specialty in Family Law, but I believe that experience is better served at the District and Appellate levels where the majority of family law cases are determined. Either of the Place 9 candidates would do well for the State of Texas, and the three Place 3 candidates that I have interviewed would all uphold the Republican value of strict construction-ism.

The Texas Governor’s race has been going on for about six years now. In 2006, Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchinson were set to face off for the position of Governor. At the time, Hutchinson’s advisors told her that she would be unsuccessful, and that she would be able to hold on to her Senate seat if she ran for another term. So, Perry was left with a primary full of fringe candidates, and a bruising general election with significant votes siphoned off by former-Democrat-former-Republican-now-independent Carole Keaton Stuart McClellan Rylander Strayhorn. Perry’s 39% showing in a field of 4 managed to gain him a win, but showed him vulnerable.
Since then, Perry has made a number of missteps that have increased his vulnerability. He doggedly supported the Trans Texas Corridor, which opponents have turned into a rallying cry for eminent domain reform. He signed an order mandating 13-year-old girls receive a vaccine for a cancer that stems from sexual activity, which, fortunately, was overturned by the State Legislature. He backed a controversial tax-swap whose benefits were not fully realized due to the machinations of local appraisal boards. And at a rally in Austin, he obliquely mentioned the word secession. The secession quote has been mostly taken out of context, but it still gave an opening for his adversaries.
In addition, there are some situational issues that run against Perry. The Speaker of the Texas House is no longer a platform-believing Republican. Instead it is a moderate Republican who was mostly elected by Democrats. The Federal health-Care plan raised so much ire that ordinary, un-involved people started to take to the streets in protest, and those protests have had a “throw all of the bums out” tinge to them. Finally, Perry has been in office longer than any other Texas Governor. Although there are no term limits in the Texas Constitution, there is a feeling that in a state as large as Texas, surely there is more than one person who is qualified to hold that office.
On the positive side, Perry’s track record has been remarkable. Texas has maintained a surplus every year he has been in office, after inheriting a twelve-billion-dollar deficit. Texas has passed more Pro-Life and Pro-Family legislation than any other state in the union. Texas has spear-headed tort-reform that stopped the exodus of health-care professionals, and instead caused a huge influx of new doctors. And when the misguided federal policies enacted by Democratic Congresses over the passed 20 years finally came to a head causing economic melt-down in most of the country, Texas was the last state to feel the effects, and has begun recovery before the rest of the nation.
On balance, the Hutchinson team feels that Perry’s negatives will outweigh his positives with the voters of Texas. But Hutchinson has a number of mill-stones around her neck as well. One is a vote in 2003 where she voted to re-affirmed Roe v. Wade as an appropriately decided case that secures an important Constitutional right. Another is her vote for the Troubled Assets Recovery Plan (TARP). Finally, her record of constituent services for active-duty and veteran servicemen is abysmally poor. As such, she lacks significant support from pro-life activists, from veterans, and from the “tea party” protesters.
Since announcing her run, there has been rampant speculation that Hutchinson would resign from the senate to campaign for Governor full-time. Her most recent promise is to resign “after the primary”. There are a half-dozen people campaigning for her seat, but as there is no vacancy, there is no date set for the special election to fill her seat. This has left a number of very qualified candidates in limbo. For example, former solicitor general Ted Cruz had planned to run for Attorney General. Attorney General Greg Abbot had planned to run for Lieutenant Governor. And Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst had planned to run for the US Senate in the seat vacated by Kay Baily Hutchinson. But until she decides to keep her promise and resign, those candidates are running for their current offices.
Into the mix, a seemingly fringe candidate has risen to popularity. Debra Medina has no significant executive experience. She has little in the way of political accomplishments. She was best known for suing the Republican Party in an attempt to change the long-established order of the State Convention – a suit that was declared frivolous. She also worked on the Ron Paul for President campaign in 2008, which netted less than 5% of the statewide vote.
The centerpiece of her campaign – a tax swap replacing property taxes with an expanded sales tax – was not drafted by her. Instead, it was developed by Jerry Mikus, who ran in House District 50 in 2008, assisted by Brian Russell, who is currently running for State Board of Education Place 10. Jerry was able to convince a large number of Republican House challengers to campaign on that platform, and it was adopted as one of the planks by the Texas Conservative Coalition in their 2008 Pledge with Texans.
Debra Medina has a number of additional negatives. She is in favor of legalizing drugs. Her campaign has been almost completely “anti-incumbent” and not at all positive. And her campaign is widely supported by people whose behavior can only be described as “thuggish”. Finally, she has stated that if she loses, she will likely not support the eventual Republican nominee.
In summary, there are three candidates in the Republican Primary, all with a significant number of negatives, and only one with a proven track record in executive office. Fortunately, all of them are vastly better than the socialists running in the Democratic Primary. It is a pity that in a state as large as Texas we could not field an experienced candidate with fewer negatives.

US Congress District 10 reaches from Northeast Travis County along the US-290 corridor to the Katy area of Harris County. There are 3 candidates for the office in the Republican primary, and all three live in Austin.
Michael McCaul is the incumbent, having served since 2004 after a difficult 4-way primary. He did not have primary opponents in 2006 or 2008. He is the chair of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the Homeland Security committee, and ranking member on a couple of other committees dealing with national security. In addition, he is on the minority whip team within the Republican caucus. I personally have been very pleased with his voting record, particularly on the TARP vote, where he and Rep. Louie Gohmert were particularly vocal in opposition to the Troubled Assets Relief Program. He also joined with Rep. Jeb Hensarling in writing the Republican alternative Health Care plan.
Rick Martin is a doctor (anesthesiologist) who is running because he is concerned about the direction the Congress is undertaking concerning health care. His reason for running appears to be to raise awareness of this issue and bend the debate towards his positions. I am not expecting him to campaign terribly hard, as he only has the one issue, and Michael McCaul agrees with most of his positions already.
Joe Petronis is a young fellow, running on a “throw all the bums out” platform. His campaign materials and stump speeches focus on McCaul not doing enough, but he does not say what he would do differently. He also has very little presence in the middle-counties or in the Katy area. I am familiar with many of his views, and would be concerned as to how he might vote on issues that are dear to me.
In the General election, the Democrats had a candidate lined up who backed out at the last minute. In desperation, they brought back Ted Ankrum for a re-match. Ankrum received 40% of the vote in 2006 against 55% for McCaul. It is expected that the DNC will pour a lot of money into this race to defeat McCaul, as his race in 2008 was rather close and he is considered vulnerable.

Texas has two types of law – civil and criminal.  Civil and Criminal law practice are separated at the District and Court of Last appeal levels, but are argued in the same court room at the Justice of the Peace and Court of Appeals levels. The Third Court of Appeals, a panel of six judges, covers 24 counties, ranging from just east of Austin, north to Waco, and west to San Angelo. In addition, the 3rd Court hears all appeals for cases against state agencies, and all cases contesting the constitutionality of Texas laws.
In March of 2009, Jan Patterson, a Democrat serving on the 3rd Court of Appeals, announced her intention to not seek re-election. My understanding is that Jan was tired of being confronted about her liberal activist tendencies each time she would travel to the more conservative parts of the district, and decided that she would rather run in Travis County for a District Court.
Around the time of her announcement, Scott King Fields, an administrative attorney from Austin, announced his intention to run for the office. Near the end of the filing period, former Judge Melissa Goodwin also announced her intention to run.
Scott has experience as a law clerk on the Texas Supreme Court (which is the court of last resort for civil matters) and currently practices appellate law for complex civil business cases.

Melissa has experience as a law clerk for the Court of Criminal Appeals (which is the court of last resort for criminal matters), and served as a Justice of the Peace in Travis County, as well as a Judge for the 427th District Court. In her private practice she represents both civil and criminal cases at the District and appellate levels.

The State Board of Education is one of two entities that deal with education policy in Texas. The other entity, the Texas Education Agency, is led by a commissioner appointed by the Governor, and contains a large number of bureaucrats. The State Board of Education, on the other hand, is composed of 15 elected officials, elected in different regions around the state. Travis County contains part of two SBOE districts. District 10, represented by Cynthia Dunbar, covers parts of 19 counties from Williamson to Fort Bend, while District 5, represented by Ken Mercer, covers parts of 15 counties from Bell to Bexar.
The SBOE is primarily responsible for developing curriculum standards, and administering the Permanent Textbook Fund. The Permanent Textbook Fund pays for textbooks in all public schools in Texas. It is an endowment that is invested and managed so that the principle is never consumed.
Both of the representatives currently serving on the SBOE for Travis County Districts belong to the conservative wing of the SBOE. Last year, the SBOE reviewed the Science standards. Both Ken Mercer and Cynthia Dunbar supported proposals to require that all scientific theories be discussed in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Naturally, the education establishment went ballistic at the thought that they should have to discuss the weaknesses of such theories as Newtonian Physics (in the light of contrary evidence from General Relativity, Chaos Theory, and Quantum Mechanics), or Macro-Evolutionary Biology (in the light of contrary evidence from irreducible complexity, the aforementioned general relativity, and the third law of thermodynamics). Actually, the so-called experts brought in from California didn’t complain about challenges to Newtonian Physics at all, only Neo-Darwinian Evolution and anthropogenic global warming.

In the end, Cynthia Dunbar was able to craft language that maintained the right to question scientific theories.  The final language was:

“In all fields of Science; analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations of science by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scienfitic explanations so as to encourage critical thinking by the student.”

The education establishment, wanting to keep teachers free to ignore most of the scientific research in the world, is running challengers in these races. For various reasons, Cynthia Dunbar decided that she would not seek re-election, so District 10 is an open seat, while Ken Mercer is running for re-election in District 5, challenged by Tim Tuggey, a moderate lobbyist for the text book publishers.

For District 10, Round-Rock Democrat Rebecca Osborne was recruited by the education establishment to run against Cynthia Dunbar.  Rebecca announced in April of 2009, soon after the Science TEKS were approved by the board.  Cynthia did not announce her decision to not seek re-election until December.  At that point, two other candidates filed.  One is Marsha Farney of Georgetown.  Marsha has an education background, has been a school teacher, and holds a PhD from UT in Curriculum Development. Another candidate is Brian Russell of Austin. Brian is an intellectual property attorney and grassroots activist in the Republican Party. He has served as State Republican Executive Committeeman for Senatorial District 14 for 6 years. In that role, he has served on the Resolutions committee, and has written many resolutions and ballot propositions concerning the State Board of Education.

Before the 2000 census there were 5 house districts in Travis County, 2 held by Republicans, and 3 by Democrats. The redistricting based on 2000 census created a new Republican leaning district in the Northeast corner of the county. In 2002, four Republicans battled for the seat, and Jack Stick won the runoff by a huge margin. During his term, he was placed on the appropriations committee, and also assisted in the second redistricting that redesigned the congressional districts for the 2004 elections.
Two issues dogged his re-election efforts. The more widely known was his relationship with the GOPAC political action committee that Ronnie Earle accused on impropriety for the purpose of besmirching then Speaker of the House Tom Delay. Less known was a situation with a MUD board in Canyon Creek. One of the MUD board members asked Jack to sponsor a particular piece of legislation that would assist the MUD board. Jack agreed to do that, and arraigned for a hearing in the appropriate subcommittee. The MUD board representative, Don Zimmerman, acted poorly during the hearing, so the legislation never made it out of committee. But Don blamed Jack, and wanted to get even. In 2004, he ran against Jack in the primary, was soundly defeated, but refused to support him in the general election. Instead he convinced over seven hundred people in Canyon Creek MUD to vote for a Libertarian candidate instead. Jack lost by just under 500 votes to Democrat Mark Strama, who has held the seat since.
Strama was supported by a number of large Republican donors because he supported tort reform, and because his uncle is one of these rich insiders. He walked to re-election in 2006 against Jeff Fleece, and again in 2008 against Jerry Mikus.
2010 promises to be a bit different. First, the money-men supporting tort reform are mostly done with their agenda.  They still have a few tweaks they would like to see, particularly with asbestos liability reform, but that’s not a terribly controversial issue. Secondly, there are rumors that Strama might be offered a post in the Obama Administration. Third, the electoral climate is expected to be more favorable to Republicans due to the way the Obama Administration has angered both the left and the right. And fourth, the race this year is expected to be “interesting” to the large Republican donors, who are not enamored with Strama’s efforts on Redistricting. As the 2010 census will lead to redistricting in 2012, and Texas is likely to receive three or four additional seats in the US Congress, Republican strategists are very interested in protecting the process to fairly represent the Republican majority that lives in Texas, and Strama’s efforts would undermine that.
The House District 50 primary promises to be very interesting. The race in general will be even more interesting if Strama receives an appointment in Washington DC.