2017 Texas Lege Liberal To Conservative Analysis

Since we're less than 30 days from the start of our Texas Lege Special Oppression Session, time to start doing our homework and preparation for when we finally get to the Pink Dome and see the folks who are really on our side and who are a waste of our valuable time to talk to.

The Texas Tribune recently compiled a left to right political analysis of the Texas House and Texas Senate to find who are our most liberal and conservative legislators in both parties.

It's an analysis that will come in quite handy if you're planning to lobby under the Pink Dome this summer during the upcoming Special Oppression Session that starts July18.

It'll help you peeps who haven't been paying close attention to who these peeps are or where their politics fall.   It also give some of you planning to run for the state House or Senate the ammo you need or confirmation enough of their political orientation to run against some of those Texas legislative and senate peeps in 2018.

So let's start with the Texas Senate.

In our 31 member senate that has a 20-11 GOP majority, the most liberal member was state Sen. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston), and the most conservafool, oops conservative was Sen. Van Taylor (R-Plano)

The most conservative Democratic senator was drum roll please, Sen Eddie Lucio, Jr (DINO-Brownsville)  and the least conservative Republican one was Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo)

Moving on to the Texas House

In our 150 member Texas House that has a 94-56 GOP Majority, Rep. Lina Ortega (D-El Paso is the most liberal House member, and the most conservative House member is a tie between Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park), Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) and not surprising (Matt Rinaldi (R-Irving)

All three are members of the twelve member Texas Oppression Freedom Caucus that caused so much trouble in the latter days of the 2017 regular session.

The most conservative Democratic House legislators was a tie between Rep Joe Pickett (D-El Paso) and Ryan Guillen (D-Rio Grande City) and the least conservative state rep was Rep. Sarah Davis (R-Houston)

Davis still pissed off a lot of people in her liberal leaning district with that affirmative SB 4  vote

And it also illustrates why the Republican caucus had some entertaining and contentious intra-party squabbles during that last session, because in effect, they are basically split into two groups, the Centrist Conservatives and the Tea Klux Klan-Movement Conservatives.  

So hope this post was helpful in getting you to understand where the legislative and senate players stand ideologically in advance of July 18.
 

Welcome Back Rep Alan Grayson!

One of the other cool things about the opening of the 113th Congress yesterday is the return of Rep Alan Grayson (D-FL) to the Democratic caucus..

I'm so happy to see Rep Grayson back.   We've needed somebody on the liberal-progressive side inside the Beltway who isn't 'scurred' to call out the Republifools and stand up proudly for our policy ideas and principles. 

Check out his first interview on Rev. Al's Politics Nation since returning to DC in which he accuses the GOP of 'legislative terrorism' ion the debt ceiling issue. 




Welcome back Rep Grayson.  This time I hope your stay in Congress is much longer than just two years.

Liberal Is Nothing To Be Ashamed Of

We frequently have discussions in the liberal progressive blogosphere about the merits of reclaiming words.

I submit that one we really need to reclaim, take back and restore to its original meaning and cease and desist from thinking of it in terms of the conservafool framing of it is liberal.

President John F. Kennedy had a wonderful September 14, 1960 speech about it which should be required reading in liberal political circles and at Democratic political gatherings this year and in perpetuity.

This should also be required viewing.  This West Wing video in which Jimmy Smits character Matt Santos eloquently breaks down in a presidential debate with a conservative played by Alan Alda what it means to be a liberal.




And we need to remember that, name it, proclaim it, believe it and smack the conservafools with it at every opportunity.  

Being called a liberal is not an insult, it's a badge of honor and we need to treat it that way, not slink away from it in shame.  The historical record irrefutably shows that the policies that built America and led to increased fairness and opportunity in our country were liberal ideas the conservafools vehemently opposed.

If there is anyone who needs to be ashamed about their political leanings, it is the conservafool.

Sisterhood Of The Traveling White Pantsuits, Stop Hatin' On The POTUS

One of the things that hasn't relented since 2008 is the heightened level of sour grapes still being wielded by white women who were diehard Hillary Clinton supporters and did much hatin' on then Senator Barack Obama when he beat her for the Democratic nomination.

And yeah, the Sisterhood of the Traveling White Pantsuits is still hatin' even though President Obama has despite all the forces arrayed against him been successful in his first term as our leader.

But you wouldn't be able to tell that by some of the scribblings coming from white women.

Whether it's firedoglake's Jane Hamsher trying to muster support for a 2012 primary challenge of the POTUS, the lukewarm support he's gotten from progressive white women, the cricket chirping silence from the feminist blogosphere and white women when First Lady Michelle Obama is attacked by the conservafool movement or blog commentary from white women remixing those bigoted 2008 talking points of Harriet Christian, it's clear the Sisterhood of the Traveling White Pantsuits are still drinking the Vanilla Ice flavored hateraid from the 2008 Democratic primary from 55 gallon drums.
  
Oh, you don't recall those bigoted Harriet Christian comments?  Let the TransGriot refresh your memory. 

The African American community damned sure does remember those comments and aren't going to forget them anytime soon despite the fact that the YouTube viral video of her saying them got deleted.

But the written word is a wonderful thang, and here's what Harriet said at the time that got scribbled down for posterity by reporters.  .  

"I'm from New York City -- Hillary state. The best nominee that's possible, and the Democrats are throwing the election away, and for what? An inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman who was running for president?" 

"I'm not gonna shut my mouth anymore. I can be called white, but you can't be called black. That's not my America. It's equality for all of us, and it's about time we all stood up for it,"
"I was a second-class citizen before - now I'm nothing."
.
"They think we won't turn and vote for McCain. Well, I've got news for all of you: McCain will be the next president of the United States."

Her pearl clutching behind was loud and wrong on her self proclaimed 'second class citizen' status and the November 4, 2008 election results.

Sen Obama's historic landslide win was irrefutable testimony of that along with the nearly 2 million people who crowded the Mall on that sunny January 20, 2009 day to watch his inauguration.  

But methinks elements of you continue to echo the sentiments of Ms.Christian and are still angry that President Obama and his family are living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and not their preferred candidate who is the current Secretary of State.

As the president said, elections have consequences.  

The 2008 election is over and Sen. Hillary Clinton lost.  Sen..Obama secured the Democratic nomination for POTUS and had his name etched in our history books because he waged a better organized and better funded campaign.   He eventually became the 44th president of the United States of America as a result.  

It was unfortunate that the last people standing for the 2008 Democratic nomination both ran in that year historic candidacies on behalf of groups that have held centuries long dreams of having one of their own sit in the Oval Office in women and African-Americans.

Somebody was going to be bitterly disappointed when it was over and it's just this time, it worked out for African-Americans. Once we saw that Sen. Obama had a legitimate shot to make our people's long awaited dream of an African-American president come true, we were all in as a community and busted our asses to make it happen just like we're all in to get him a second term.   

There will be a female POTUS, and that may happen in our lifetimes because of Geena Davis' portrayal of President Mackenzie.Allen on ABC's Commander In Chief and Secretary of State Clinton's historic run opened some minds to visualizing a female president.

That female POTUS may even be a woman of color or trans to boot.  But seriously, y'all need to stop hatin' on the progressive African-American one we have that's doing the thankless job right now of cleaning up Junior's mess with no help from Congress.

Sisterhood of the Traveling White Pantsuits, it's past time for y'all to exhale, deal with your finite disappointment and rekindle that infinite hope that it will happen.

It's also time to get focused on winning this 2012 election for Team liberal -progressive and keeping the White House in our column.