Tag: Texas

The 2020 presidential election will tell us much about the future political direction of Texas. The nation’s political future runs through our state and the other booming southwestern states that are changing just as speedily. Last month, President Donald Trump visited El Paso to build support for the proposed border wall in an effort to shore up his support among the more conservative voters of our state. Other 2020 presidential candidates such as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former Massachusetts Gov. These rapid changes also portend serious challenges that need to be met with consensus leadership. Millions of Texans are income insecure, without health care insurance, or denied access to quality medical care. A plurality of Texans embrace the state’s growing diversity with optimism, according to a recent poll by the University of Texas and Texas Tribune. Texans of both parties have come to expect economic progress as a significant feature of government, combined with responsible growth. Political fights about moderation inside our polarized parties sapped significant energy in the 2018 cycle. Candidates also need to balance what voters want with the needs of the state and nation.

DraftBeto co-founder Nate Lerner asserted that people should look past former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s whiteness and look into the issues that matter, in a Friday interview with Tucker Carlson. Lerner asserted that the Republican Party consisted mostly of white men and that the Democratic Party was better because it was more diverse. “The problem is when you have the Republican Party as a great example when you look at a picture of Paul Ryan’s interns, and it’s all just a bunch of white guys, that’s not a great look,” Lerner said. “It was the same thing with the Republican Party in 2016: it’s all a bunch of white guys. That’s not our country, and it doesn’t make sense.” Carlson followed up to that statement with a simple question, “Why are you backing the white guy? Why, when you have such a diverse field, does the white guy get to jump to the front of the line?” “Now it’s about saying ‘Great, we have all these great candidates, we aren’t going to make identity our sole issue, there’s a lot of other issues on the table to consider. (RELATED: Texas Democratic Party Chairman Unable To Name One Beto Accomplishment) “Ok, you can have them run, you just don’t want them to win it, I get it,” Tucker responded. “You want to be able to have them on the stage, you want them in the picture, but you don’t want them to win.” “I think Beto is a better fit for this country at this time,” Lerner concluded. Beto announced late Wednesday with a full interview in Vanity Fair where he discussed the long thought process that led to him deciding he was “born to run” for president. The former congressman has limited success in office, but he experienced national acclaim when he ran against Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and lost in the 2018 mid-term election.

CBS News Political Correspondent Ed O'Keefe says these events are opportunities for candidates and other political hopefuls. “If there’s anything a presidential candidate needs, it’s to get in front of a crowd, whether it’s an early primary state, or a potential swing state like Texas, so I think they see this as a real opportunity to come, road test some messages," O'Keefe said. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez echoes this. He was among the figures at the DNC's fundraiser and meet-and-greet Friday evening. “It’s become an iconic national event, and I wanted to make sure people understood what we’re doing at the Democratic Party to win," Perez said. This weekend, 2020 presidential candidates Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar are just some politicians holding events. O'Keefe says these appearances can help with fundraising efforts. O'Keefe says this is the most prominent politics have been at SXSW, due in part to Democrats seeing Texas as a possible swing state in future elections. “Texas is very much in play for Democrats. For a list of political event, you can visit the SXSW website.

While the Free Democrats are less popular than the Greens — they get about 10 percent in most polls — their parallel rise over the last few years, coming alongside significant drops in support for historically dominant parties, points to the possibility of a wholesale realignment of German politics. In the second half of the 20th century, the great fault line in German politics ran between the conservative Christian Democrats (and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union) and the liberal Social Democrats. That’s why the Christian Democrats managed to hold on in rural parts of Bavaria, even as the Social Democrats were wiped out. But the Greens’ main competitor is not the Christian Democrats nor the Social Democrats, but the Free Democrats — known, informally, as the Liberals. Both the Greens and the Liberals agree on many of the cultural issues that divided the old left and right, like abortion and gay rights. But they divide over contemporary flash points like technology (the Liberals embrace its growing role in society; the Greens are skeptical), immigration (the Liberals support a Canadian-style, rules-based system; the Greens are for much more open borders) and economics (in this regard, they mimic their predecessors). Their kinship is one result of the changing axis of values in politics — most German voters, across the political spectrum, now agree on the things that once divided them, and their leading parties. Germany is not alone in this political realignment. One of the reasons given for the rise of the far right in Germany is the coziness between the two leading parties of the 20th century. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor.

House Republicans on Tuesday claimed a small victory over the Democrats' climate change agenda by holding a rare successful vote as the minority to end an oversight hearing, saying that the subject of global warming was outside the committee's jurisdiction. The Republicans in the Natural Resources Committee's oversight panel won in a 4-2 vote to end the hearing, simply because there weren't more than two Democrats present. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, the top Republican on the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, called for the vote after laying out the case that climate change was not within the jurisdiction of the committee, based on its charter and bylaws. Gohmert called for a vote to adjourn following his opening remarks, and a roll call vote was held. Witnesses at the hearing were not introduced before the Republicans left the hearing room. With the Republicans in adjournment, the Democrats were forced to change the proceedings from a hearing to a "forum," which Rep. T.J. Cox of California, the chairman of the oversight panel, opened by introducing the speakers. The full committee's top Republican, Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, had raised the jurisdiction issues at the beginning of the month when the Democratic leadership launched its sweeping series of hearings on climate change. Bishop also said the Democrats were not properly giving notice to Republican members on the topics of the hearing. Click for more from the Washington Examiner.

When political consultants were scouring the state’s 2016 election results two years ago, they found three Texas congressional districts where voters had kept Republican incumbents in office while also favoring Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Now there are new results to pore over, courtesy of the Texas Legislative Council, and a new list of possible targets for the next election. On the other side, Cruz didn’t prevail in any of the districts won by Democratic congressional candidates. CD-7, a Houston district now represented by U.S. Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a Democrat, was the third district on the previous election cycle’s target list — a district held by a Republican incumbent but won by Clinton. But that district’s voters, on average, remained just on the Republican side of the partisan line last year: The average Republican beat the average Democrat in statewide races by 0.2 percentage points. All three of those districts will be on anyone’s preliminary 2020 list — and would be there no matter which party’s candidate won the last election. Statewide Republicans won in that district by 4 percentage points, on average. Trump won by about 6, but O’Rourke won by 3.5 percentage points. One big difference between the 2016 and the 2018 elections in Texas was the overall strength of Democratic candidates. Republicans won every statewide race in both of those years, but the margins were very different: In 2016, the Republican candidate beat the Democratic candidate by an average of 14.1 percentage points.

After a BBC cameraman was attacked during President Donald Trump's campaign speech in El Paso, Texas, CNN's Jim Acosta discusses what environment is like inside one of the President's rallies. #CNN #News

CNN's Ed Lavandera speaks to the people of El Paso, Texas, as President Donald Trump claims violent crime decreased in the border town because of barriers built at the US-Mexico border. #CNN #News

Two border wall projects totaling 14 miles will start this month #FoxNews FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable,…

“No method of judicial selection is perfect,” Hecht told the joint session of the House and Senate. “Still, partisan elections is among the very worst methods.” Texas is one of a handful of states that requires judges to declare a political party in elections. Hecht said that system should be cast aside in favor of nonpartisan races in which candidates would not be required to have party affiliation. During the 2018 midterm elections, more than 400 Democratic judges unseated incumbents around the state as turnout surged and a majority of voters opted for the “straight-ticket” voting option. “When partisan politics is the driving force, and the political climate is as harsh as ours has become, judicial elections make judges more political, and judicial independence is the casualty,” Hecht said. The system of straight-ticket voting, which allows voters to quickly choose all the Republican or Democratic candidates on their ballot, is in the process of being phased out by 2020. “Qualifications did not drive their election,” Hecht said of the hundreds of new judges. “Partisan politics did.” Texas is well known for sweeps on judicial seats. It went the other way in 2008, with 22 of 26 Republican judicial incumbents losing their posts as Democrat Barack Obama won the White House. pcobler@express-news.net