DemAdmin's blog

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Lawmakers make the laws. The question is, do they follow them all to the letter?

State Rep. Ron Reynolds of Missouri City, who last month was named "Freshman of the Year" by his fellow Democrats, puts that question to the test.

A KXAN News investigation shows that as of June 1, Reynolds owed the Texas Ethics Commission nearly $10,260 in fines relating to failure to file the required financial disclosure reports required of candidates for public office and officeholders.

Read the rest of the story at KXAN.

^{By Lloyd Criss—Galveston County Democratic Party Chairman}

For many decades Texas had a tax structure that provided adequate revenue to fund public education and balance the state budget. Occasionally the tax structure produced a surplus. Prior Democratic administrations wisely converted the surpluses into savings and created the Texas Rainy Day Fund for unanticipated circumstances.

In 2006 Gov. Rick Perry passed legislation that contained substantial tax cuts to benefit certain big businesses. This tax cut legislation created a $5 billion dollar shortfall in state revenue. By 2011 this shortfall, combined with a recession driven decline in sales tax revenue, blossomed into the $27 billion budget deficit crisis for the 82^nd Texas Legislative Session.

This historic budget crisis was no accident. The shortfall had been forecast by the state comptroller at the time. The state treasury isn’t broke; it was robbed of the funds we need to serve the citizens of this state.

AUSTIN, Texas (June 1, 2011) -- In the largest freshman class in decades, Rep. Ron Reynolds (D-Fort Bend County, District 27) was voted "Freshman of the Year" by the House Democratic Caucus. Rep. Reynolds worked tirelessly on many critical issues facing the state and fought hard to protect the most vulnerable citizens in Texas.

This session, Rep. Reynolds played a key leadership role in many debates including the state's budget crisis, funding public education, fighting for teachers and protecting the elderly. "I was proud to announce that Ron was our Freshman of the Year," said Jessica Farrar, House Democratic Leader. "Many members believe that a freshman's job is to be seen, but not heard.  Ron refused to take a back seat during this tough legislative session and his voice was important as we fought for teachers, financial aid for college students, and to keep nursing homes open."

Shame on the Fort Bend Republican Chairman, Rick Miller, and every other elected official in Sugar Land or Fort Bend…  A scurrilous attack via e-mail and mailed flyer has been put out attacking Farha Ahmed who is in a run off for a seat on the Sugar Land City Council. The e-mail and flyer cleverly insinuates that Ahmed is a Muslim extremist...

...I've known her for many years and became familiar with her mostly through her work with the Fort Bend Republican Party. So the idea being promoted that she is a terrorist is not only laughable, it is unconscionable.

...It is amazing to me that a press release or even a Facebook entry has not been posted denouncing the people behind the hate campaign against Farha Ahmed by not only her political opponent, but her political party, or any other member of the Sugar Land City Council. What’s wrong with you people?

The causal story off that graph is something like “in the ’90s, bringing down the deficit through a balanced mix of tax increases and spending cuts was a net positive for growth.” The correlation story off that graph is “the ’90s were a good time for the global economy, and Clinton’s economic management was, at best, a small part of the decade’s successes.” The obviously wrong stories are “tax increases are incompatible with growth” and “Bush’s management of the economy was successful.”

Lt Gen Ricardo SanchezFormer Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who oversaw coalition forces in Iraq before retiring in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, is running for Senate in Texas as a Democrat.

Two Democratic sources with direct knowledge of Sanchez's plans said he will announce his run Wednesday on Facebook, then file campaign paperwork in San Antonio. The sources would speak only on condition of anonymity before the announcement.

Sanchez, 59, was raised in Rio Grande Valley and lives in San Antonio.

State Republicans have introduced nearly 1,000 laws restricting women's reproductive health access. Here are 10 of the worst states to be a woman between puberty and menopause.

Texas. Thirty-five percent of women in their childbearing years are uninsured in Texas, making the need for subsidized family planning services especially strong in the state.

The Obama Energy Agenda & Gas Prices

President Obama's remarks on how we’re going to get gas prices under control: 

But if we can transition to new technologies, that's what’s going to make a difference over the long term.  That's how we’re going to meet the goal that I’ve set of reducing the amount of oil that we import by one-third by the middle of the next decade.  We can hit that target.  We can hit that target.

The Republican Party of Fort Bend County Executive Committee has unanimously passed a resolution in support of convicted felon and disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay expressing "appreciation for his tireless service to our community, the State of Texas and the nation."

What have they been smoking?