It's On Scott Walker: The Wisconsin Recall Effort Begins

On November 15 the recall effort to unseat unpopular Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker commenced with the opponents of the GOP governor needing to gather 540,000 signatures by January 17 in order to trigger a recall election that would be scheduled for March 27 with enough valid signatures.   

If there were a primary in either party, that election would be pushed back again to April 24.

In just 48 hours the Recall Scott Walker team has gathered 50,000 signatures and if they can sustain that rate they will have the required number of signatures in 11 days.    Their target is 600,000 so they have a cushion for any that are thrown out.

And for you TransGriot readers in Wisconsin, here's the link to the United Wisconsin page so you can do your part and join in on the fun.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Good luck and may you have much success in recalling and sending Scott Walker back to his life as a private citizen.

Flier Fireworks At Tonight's HISD Board Meeting

There will be an interesting HISD board meeting later tonight at the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center, and one of the topics for discussion won't be education issues.

District III Trustee Manuel Rodriguez, Jr. voted for the new stricter non-discrimination and anti-bullying policies passed back in August that protects district students and employees from harassment due to sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

He was one of the three HISD school board members who were up for reelection in this cycle. While HISD Board President and District IV trustee Paula Harris and District VIII trustee Juliet Stipeche were easily reelected over their opponents, Rodriguez had a more contentious race to keep his District III seat.

He was facing stiff competition from challenger Ramiro Fonseca, a Houston Community College administrator who had the backing of the teacher's unions, the Houston GLBT Political Caucus and Texas state Senator Mario Gallegos.

Just before the November 8 election Rodriguez unleashed a homophobic attack flier aimed at Fonseca that fellow board trustee Stipeche criticized him for and Houston GLBT Political Caucus President Noel A Freeman described as “trash politics at its worst.”

“A homophobic bigot like this has no business making decisions that affect our children,” Freeman said.

The building political firestorm over the homophobic flier also caused the Houston Chronicle to take the rare step of pulling their endorsement of him.

A last-minute campaign flier for Rodriguez displays appalling homophobia. The flier urges recipients not just to vote for Rodriguez, but to vote against his opponent, Ramiro Fonseca, because he has been endorsed by the Houston GLBT Caucus, "the South's oldest civil rights organization dedicated solely to the advancement of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights." The flier further states that Fonseca has "spent years advocating for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender rights … not kids," and winds up with a pair of bullet points noting that he's 54 years old with no children and has a male partner.

That's obvious gay-bashing, of the kind that HISD rightly prohibits on the playground. It has no place on HISD's board.

Got that right.  And there's nothing wrong with "spending years advocating for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender rights."   By the way, Trustee Rodriguez, advocating for TBLG human rights is standing up for kids inside and outside our rainbow community.  

We have early voting here in Texas, and while Fonseca won on Election Day and probably picked up even more votes due to the homophobic flier, the ballots gained on weren't enough to offset the mail-in ballots and early voting lead Rodriguez piled up and he retained his seat by a mere 24 votes.

He apologized for the flier on Wednesday with a written statement:

"I am aware that some people have said they were offended by one of my ads, and I apologize to all of those people." Rodriguez said.

"I think the hurt has been deep in the community," Fonseca said to the Houston Chronicle in response to Rodriguez's statement.

Fonseca is still mulling over whether to ask for a recount in the razor thin election as the calls from various quarters of the city for Rodriguez's resignation from the HISD school board mount.  

There will be probably more than the usual amount of people in the board room auditorium tonight.  They will be patiently waiting to have their turn at the mike to speak during the public comment phase of the board meeting ready to as we say in the GLBT community 'read trustee Rodriguez'.  

And for you folks in the Houston area who can't make it to 4418 W 18th Street, tonight's meeting as all HISD board meetings are will be broadcast live on public access cable channels and replayed for your convenient viewing pleasure later..

It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out.

Mayor Annise Parker's Victory Speech

It was close, but Houston Mayor Annise D. Parker did get that second term.   Although she barely got to the magic 51% mark to avoid a runoff, she still garnered 59.920 votes and got reelected

Jack O'Connor, the top vote getter amongst her five opponents got 17,265 votes or 15% of the total.

That makes this Parker's eighth straight win in a citywide contest dating back to her 1997 run for the Position 2 at large city council seat.  

She served three terms as an at large city council member, three terms as city controller, and will now be in the mayor's chair for another two years.  

Here's her victory speech from last night.

Mayor Parker Gets A Second Term!

It was close, but all you need to do to win a political campaign is get more than 50% of the votes cast in that election, and that's exactly what Houston Mayor Annise Parker did.

She had five minor opponents in this race and used some of that campaign war chest she'd built up.  

Mayor Parker spent $2.3 million to help ensure she got her message out there what she was doing for a city struggling with a tough economy.   She also reminded Houston citizens she was dealing with a $100 million budget shortfall when she took over at City Hall.


Mayor Parker had to lay off more than 750 city workers, consolidate departments, raise some fees and cut some deals to put off some of the city's bills until better times to do it. but the best part is she also managed to do so without raising taxes or laying off any firefighters or police officers.

And oh yeah, did I mention our resident wingnuts, conservafools, Reichers and hate preachers who tried their usual last minute gay baiting dirty political tricks but failed?. 

It's now the eighth straight citywide elections she's won since capturing an at large city council seat in 1997.
.

She'll get another two years before she faces the electorate one more time in 2013.   If she's successful, that will be her third and final term before she has to give up the mayor's chair due to term limits (which I fracking hate) on December 31, 2015.

But I'm very happy to know that when January 1, 2012 comes around she'll still be my hometown's mayor.

Congrats Mayor Parker!.

Ohio, Handle Your Electoral Business

While we get busy in Houston in a few hours electing our mayor and city council members, the folks in Ohio will be going to the polls to vote on whether to kill SB5, the Republican created bill that bans collective bargaining for public employees among it's other odious anti-worker provisions

In summary, here are the provisions of  SB 5:

• Bargaining: Expands the topics that management can refuse to negotiate with public employees. Those topics include: employee qualifications, work assignments and staffing levels. According to reports, public employees can still bargain for wages and hours.

• Strikes: Strikes would be banned, along with a deduction of "an amount equal to twice the employee's daily rate of pay" for each day an employee is considered to be on strike.

• Performance pay and sick/vacation leave: Currently, the minimum amount for a teacher to be paid is $17,300. This would be undone by the law, replacing this by implementing a pay by performance provision. Sick leave would be reduced from three weeks a year to two. Vacation leave would be capped to five weeks a year.

• Union fees: Public employees would not have to pay union fees if they do not want to be become a union member. This was a condition of employment before Senate Bill 5.

• Governing bodies and contract disputes: The governing body of a city, school, or township would have the final say on any contract disputes that initially become unresolved.

• Charter schools: Employees of charter schools would not be allowed to collectively bargain. The only exception, according to reports, would be conversion charter schools.

The bill was bumrushed through a Republican majority Ohio legislature not long after they regained control of it after the 2010 midterm elections.  SB 5 so angered people in the Buckeye State that 1,298,301 signatures were collected to place it on the ballot to be repealed when they were only required to collect 231,149 valid signatures

The repeal question is on the ballot as Ohio Question 2, and Ohio residents will have to vote NO to kill the odious SB 5.   In the last poll taken indications are that's probably going to happen by a 59%-36% double digit margin despite the late flurry of corporate money , right wing cash and Faux News appearances by former employee and current Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) to turn the tide for the Greed Is Good Forces.

But the coalition working to repeal SB5 is not taking anything for granted and are still working hard on their GOTV efforts and making sure the hard work they did this summer to collect those signatures isn't in vain.

Hoping we hear good news out of Ohio when the polls close later today.