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During an emotional moment at the Dallas Women's Museum, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison praised Hillary Rodham Clinton for "keeping a confident face" during the 2008 presidential campaign when "you were getting so many disappointments." "You were completely devastated and you never let it show on your face," Hutchison said during the forum. "That character is why you are secretary of state today."

Kay Bailey Hutchison cautious in praising Sarah Palin ST. PAUL, Minn. – Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison contrasted the full-throated defense of Sarah Palin by some in her party and lowered the bar Wednesday by offering her own statesman-like, cautious praise for the vice presidential nominee. Asked if Ms. Palin is ready to be vice president, Ms. Hutchison said that "she offers a lot to the ticket. We'll see in the coming weeks how she does, where she goes. And I think she's going to do fine."

BROWNSVILLE — Some conservatives are labeling U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a traitor after she slipped an amendment into the federal budget bill passed last month that some say effectively kills the border fence. The conservative radio world and blogosphere has been buzzing with outcry that the amendment — which removed the requirement under the Secure Fence Act for a double-layered fence and gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff flexibility in its placement — did just that. Nationally syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin decried the "incredible shrinking border fence." Others called Hutchison "Benedict Arnold" and said the Texas Republican used the...

In a quiet act of defiance, the Senate approved a $555 billion omnibus spending bill that removed legal requirements mandating the federal government fund 854 miles of a double layer border fence spanning America's southwestern border. The funding requirement was codified into law when Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the Secure Fence Act (SFA) in 2006. When the spending bill, which combines appropriations for a number of federal agencies, reached the Senate, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) attached S.Amdt. 2466 to the measure in order to silently gut the SFA's spending requirement. The Hutchison amendment reads, "Nothing...

Congress has apparently misinterpreted the call to shrink the federal government. While our Representatives and Senators have included over 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill under consideration today, and while they continue to add more and more federal spending, they have shrunk the border fence passed by the 109th Congress last year. It removes the requirements for specific construction and location, leaving the project in limbo (via Michelle Malkin and Memeorandum): Congress last night passed a giant new spending bill that undermines current plans for a U.S.-Mexico border fence, allowing the Homeland Security Department to build a single-tier barrier...

WASHINGTON - A Senate plan to build 700 miles of border fencing hit a snag Tuesday when Texas' senators said the Department of Homeland Security and border communities — not Congress — should decide where the fence is built. The objections by Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn complicated plans by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to win passage this week of a bill intended to showcase to voters the GOP's commitment to border security. The House passed an identical fencing bill last week, with specific locations for the fence, such as a segment from Laredo to Brownsville....

Conservative Republican candidate for Governor of Texas - Debra Medina - writes an op/ed taking Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison to task for her longstanding opposition to pro-life issues. Medina says in part, "Conservative and pro-choice rarely fall in the same sentence, unless you’re referring to “conservative” gubernatorial candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison, of course. A long time Washington insider and clear adversary on pro-life issues, Senator Hutchison has had ample opportunity to rally against abortion, and she has failed."

WASHINGTON – With Congress at a stalemate over immigration, Texas' two senators took different tacks this week in hopes of breaking the logjam and getting a bill to President Bush's desk. Sen. John Cornyn and fellow Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona on Monday urged the president to make a bold move and demand that Congress immediately free up nearly $4 billion for hundreds of Border Patrol agents, immigration inspectors and border fencing. Doing so, they said, will convince Americans that the federal government is serious about enforcing immigration law – and could increase support for a broader bill that includes...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! Fence? What fence?...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** Fence? What...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** Fence? What...

MAXWELL, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill includes a little-known provision that guts the major provisions of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This provision -- buried on page 123 of Division E of the Consolidated Appropriations Act - contradicts the Secure Fence Act’s specific mandate of a double-layer fence covering 854 miles of the U.S-Mexico border. Grassfire.org has been tracking this provision which was first introduced quietly by Sen. Hutchison this summer as S.Amdt. 2466 to H.R. 2368 (the DHS appropriations bill). “The Hutchison amendment gives DHS virtually total discretion over how and where the fence is built,” says...

Cornyn ready for challenges, including housing New senator gets eye-opener on prices, discusses priorities 11/15/2002 By DAVID JACKSON / The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - Texas' newest senator says he is eager to get to work on national security and confirming judges, but first he needs an office and a house. Congressional leaders haven't assigned workspace to John Cornyn and other freshman lawmakers, and he and his wife are finding Washington's real estate market steep, the state attorney general said Thursday in his first news conference as senator-elect. "Even for a fairly modest hovel here in the district, it's...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s decision to challenge Republican Gov. Rick Perry in next year’s gubernatorial primary is leaving her would-be Senate successors perplexed on how to handle their campaign finances. SNIP Already at least four Republicans are running and raising money: former Secretary of State Roger Williams, Texas Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones and Michael Williams and state Senate President Florence Shapiro. But the most aggressive campaign organization is being built by the Democratic mayor of Houston, Bill White, who raised $1.8 million over the past three months and has $2.1 million in the bank. snip The complicating factor is...

Let me be the first to write this political obituary. I met Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for the first time in 1991, when we invited the then-Treasurer of Texas (a position that the voters retired soon after Kay was elected to the Senate) to speak to a student organization at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). She was, and is, a very gracious person who seemed in (slightly) over her head. When I asked Kay about the Texas Constitution’s Legislative Budget Board (LBB) and how it is supposed to arrest growth in state government, she made it clear that...

Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. More here. Update 10:20pm Eastern. Sen. Jim DeMint is on the Senate floor right now blasting the omnibus bill for gutting the fence, removing the ban on sanctuary cities, and funding illegal alien lawyers. Hear, hear. Update 1:20pm Eastern. Omnibusting links the section of the bill containing the border-gutting. Update 10:20am Eastern. The fence gets robbed, but the spending bill gives $10 million in “emergency” funding for attorneys of illegal immigrants?!!?! *** fencewhatfence.jpg Fence?...

Steve Elliott, the president of Grassfire, says he still wants to know, “Where’s the fence?” Elliott, in a telephone interview, told WND an amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget would gut the already-approved Secure Fence Act, which was adopted with the promise hundreds of miles of physical fencing would help secure the U.S. border with Mexico. But the budget bill now in a conference committee contains the Hutchinson amendment, and Elliott says it simply would drop the requirement for the security project. “After the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was...