The 81st Texas Legislature convened at noon on Tuesday, January 13, 2009. The session ends on Monday, June 1, 2009. Right out of the box, the House of Representatives was in turmoil over the issue of the House Speakership. The incumbent (and King of the Dumbos — Tom Craddick, R-Midland) was overthrown by a coalition of Dumbos and Donkeys. Craddick was replaced (with substantial Donkey support) — time running out — by a "moderate" Dumbo, Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. Meanwhile, over in the Senate chamber, the Dumbos changed the rules of that body and rammed a Voter ID bill down the throats of the Donkeys. The Dumbo front-man for the Voter ID bill was Senator Dan Patrick, R-Houston — no kin to Dan Patrick, former ESPN talking head and current jock radio talk show host — who rivals former Speaker Craddick for the title of "Dumber Than Dirt." The Voter ID bill made its way out of the Senate and came to the House. In that chamber, the leadership "team" put the Voter ID bill at the bottom of the calendar — when time would be short — in hopes that the Donkeys might be pressured to vote for the remedy for a non-existent problem. No credible evidence of widespread voter fraud exists in Texas. The Dumbos insist that the Voter ID bill will prevent future voter fraud. For the past week, the Donkeys have employed delaying tactics that torpedoed a lot of pending legislation in the hopper while Donkey representatives went to the microphone at the back of the chamber to ask questions (in 10-minute increments) of one another and witless Dumbos. This delaying tactic of asking questions "for clarification" is known as "chubbing." Forget reality TV. Forget carnival geek shows. When the Texas Legislature is in session, it is The Most Bizarre Show On Earth. In today's Austin fishwrap, the editorial cartoon portrays the House of Representatives as they are and the faux-redneck humor columnist opines that voter fraud might give Texas a better quality Legislature. If this is (fair & balanced) Lone Star lunacy, so be it.
[x Austin Fishwrap]
The Voter ID Controversy In The Texas House Of Representatives
By Ben Sargent
[Ben Sargent drew editorial cartoons regularly for the Austin American-Statesman (1974-2009). Sargent now contributes a cartoon to the Sunday editorial page. His cartoons are also distributed nationally by Universal Press Syndicate. Sargent was born in Amarillo, Texas, into a newspaper family. He learned the printing trade from age twelve and started working for the local daily as a proof runner at fourteen. He attended Amarillo College and received a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. Sargent won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1982. He has also received awards from Women in Communications, Inc., Common Cause of Texas, and Cox Newspapers. He is the author of Texas Statehouse Blues (1980) and Big Brother Blues (1984).]
Copyright © 2009 Ben Sargent/Austin American-Statesman
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If We Allow Voter Fraud Will We End Up With A Better Legislature?
By John Kelso
Friends and neighbors, let me become the first to come out in favor of voter fraud.
Before you start screaming and pulling your hair out, hear me out. If a different set of people voted, maybe we'd get a smarter bunch of people elected to the state Legislature.
Here's the situation. Everything up at the Capitol got all gummed up because of a battle over the voter identification card bill.
The Democrats said that making people show a photo ID at the polls was a ruse to keep poor people and old folks from voting. The Republicans said the countryside is rife with people who aren't registered to vote cheating at the polls. I'll bet the number of people buying beer underage with phony IDs far outnumbers the number of people using phony IDs to vote illegally for, say, Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston. But who's counting?
What I can't understand is why the argument was necessary in the first place. All you'd have to do to fix the problem is put one of those automatic photo booths like you used to see at places like Sam's Club out in front of each polling place, and let people who don't have photo IDs get their pictures made. How hard could that be? This service would come with a laminating machine.
Anyway, the two sides slammed into a wall over this voter ID issue. To keep the ID bill from passing, the Democrats resorted to a tactic called "chubbing," Funny word, chubbing. Kind of brings the obvious to mind.
Or it's a fishing term.
"Yeah, we were chubbing with plastic worms 'bout 10 feet from shore when I landed this particular five-pound hawg."
But at the Legislature, "chubbing" is a term for stalling by asking a lot of stupid questions about bills that don't amount to doodley.
Like "About that no smoking bill, senator? How 'bout some pie?" Anyway, because of this voter ID squabble, much legislative business that should have gotten done didn't. It would be easy — and redundant — to say the problem is that the Legislature is a bunch of nincompoops. On the other hand, whose fault is that? Who elected these Bozos?
That's right — for the most part, you and me, the registered voters who were who we said we were at the polls.
Maybe it's time for a change. If the registered voters are picking losers, could it be time to switch out voters?
I'm thinking we might be better off if we went around town with a van, rounded up a bunch of folks hanging out at bars and bus stops who aren't registered for anything except maybe a free ham at the grocery store, and let them do the voting for us. We might get better results. Ω
[Downeaster (Maine-native) John Kelso has worked for the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman as a humor columnist since 1977. Before coming to Austin, Kelso worked at several newspapers: The Manchester (NH) Union-Leader; The Boonville (MO) Daily News; The Palm Beach (FL) Post, and the Racine (WI.) Journal Times. Kelso has been a general assignment reporter, a copy editor, a sports editor, and an outdoor writer. As a pretend-redneck, Kelso is all gimme cap and no double-wide. His redneck-shtik appears thrice weekly: Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays in the Austin Fishwrap.]
Copyright © 2009 Austin American-Statesman
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Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves
