Posted on 11/13/2008 7:15:01 AM PST by hocndoc
The Texas Democrats lost the presidential election in Texas. They failed to knock Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn out of his seat. They didn’t capture any of the six slots on the state’s top two appellate courts. They lost one seat in Congress.
But exuberant Democrats were still pinching themselves Wednesday morning at the gains they had made.
“I’ve got a real problem today,” said state Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, sporting a huge grin. “I can’t stop smiling.”
Dunnam, leader of the Democratic Caucus in the House, said his party had picked up a net of three seats in the House, and still holds out hope that a fourth will tip their way as ballots are re-tallied. He said he was smiling not just for the Democratic gains, but for what they will mean for school children, people who need health care, and those who think they can’t afford to go to college.
The Democrats went into the election behind the Republicans by 79-71. A gain of three seats puts the line-up as 76-74 – and if the final seat breaks to the Democrats, it would be dead even between the parties, at 75-75. (See below for the seat still not certain.)
No matter what the final outcome of that tight contest, Dunnam predicted,
the Democratic gains mean that come January, there will be a different House speaker than Tom Craddick, whose heavy-handed tactics have offended several Republican House members in addition to most of the Democrats.
“It won’t be Tom Craddick,” Dunnam declared. “It’s over.”
Dunnam said the House Democrats, who caucused later Wednesday afternoon, plan to act as a caucus.
Although a half dozen House members have been mentioned as potential speaker candidates -- including Pete Gallego of Alpine, Allan Ritter of Beaumont, Scott Hochberg of Houston, Senfronia Thompson of Houston, Sylvester Turner of Houston, Craig Eiland of Galveston, and Dunnam himself -- he refused to speculate on who might have the inside track.
“I can assure you that when that door opens, we’ll be united,” Dunnam said.
The Democrats also knocked off one incumbent Republican state senator – Kim Brimer of Arlington, who lost to former Fort Worth city councilwoman Wendy Davis by about 7,000 votes – and may pick up another seat that’s headed for a runoff.
That is in Senate District 17, that stretches from southwest Houston into other counties toward the Gulf of Mexico. Republican Kyle Janek resigned from that seat a few months ago.
Democrat Chris Bell, who was his party’s nominee for governor in 2006 and a Houston congressman and city councilman before that, led with 38.4 percent in a special election held in conjunction with the general election. He’ll face Republican Joan Huffman, who got 26.1 percent. The runoff will be in December.
The Senate line-up if Bell loses will be 19-12 in favor of the Republicans. However, the all-important number the Democrats need is 11 – the one-third of the Senate necessary to block the two-thirds vote needed to bring up bills. Davis’s victory gives them a cushion, and a Bell victory would increase it.
Although the Democrats failed to pick up statewide judicial spots, they did add a handful of regional appellate judgeships, including Democrat Woodie Jones unseating 3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice Ken Law, a Republican.
In Harris County (Houston), Democrats buoyed by a Democratic presidential candidate’s victory there for the first time since 1964, also won 23 of 27 countywide district and probate judgeships on the ballot, and three of the six countywide administrative posts, including sheriff.
And in Dallas County, which flipped countywide to the Democrats in 2006, the Democrats picked up more judgeships.
Of course, Republicans says some of those countywide seats could revert to the GOP in 2010, when turnout will probably be lower because there isn’t a hard-fought presidential contest on the ballot.
But the Democrats’ chairman Richie was optimistic about the trend. With the number of Texans who voted Democrat for president increasing by close to 700,000 over 2004, and a presumably hot race for governor and other statewide positions, “I’m looking forward to 2010,” Richie said.
# # #
The Contested House Seat . . . . Incumbent Republican Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, of House District 105 in Irving, led in Tuesday’s vote by a scant 25 votes, of nearly 40,000 cast. But 280 provisional ballots had yet to be counted Wednesday afternoon. Dallas County’s election administrator said the results “could flip.”
Bob Romano, the Democrat who challenged Harper-Brown, told the Dallas News he wasn’t sure whether he’d call for a recount. He said things were going “absolutely crazy. I want to get out of here and go deer hunting.”
# # #
The number of announced candidates for House speaker increased by one on Wednesday, when Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, called a press conference to announce his candidacy. He pledged to have the speaker elected by secret ballot, to avoid retaliation against House members who vote against the winner.
“My platform is simple,” said Merritt, a political maverick. “The Texas House will under my leadership be an open body that follows the rules . . .respecting each member’s views regardless of party or political leaning.”
At the rate speaker candidates are being discussed, the list of those who aren’t running, in both parties, may actually become shorter than those who are.
Contact McNeely at dmcneely@austin.rr.com
We Republicans need to decide whether we intend to oppose the Democrats or each other. The House Republicans must decide to work together, even if it means one more term as Speaker for Craddick. No more end-of-session (excuse me) pissing contests.
We need to make sure that (shudder) Chris Bell does not make it to the Senate. Any District 17 Freepers out there?
There were several Republicans running against Chris Bell. This should go better in the general election.
Another reason he is smiling is 2012, when Rick Perry (if renominated) won’t have the luxury of divided general election opposition as he had in 2006, when 39 percent was sufficient to hold on to the seat. The state House seats have been steadily disappearing since 2004.
Demography is destiny even in Texas.
If the trend continues the democrats will have control of the House in 2010 and with the 2/3rds requirement in the Senate they in effect have a lot of control there today.
In 2002 the GOP took over in the house with an 82-68 margin and as you say it has been downhill since. The demographics in Texas is changing ever so quickly it seems.
This should go better in the general election.
Hopefully but it will depend upon turnout. The two democrats combined got almost 54% to the combined 46% of the republican candidates.
Of course it goes without saying that we have too many to count illegals here--many of whom found a way to vote, I've been told.
And the demographics are changing fast it seems....... Ten counties flipped from Bush majorities to Obama majorities in this election. In addition Bush won the state with a 23% majority in 2004 which shrank to a 12% majority for McCain. I guess the home state advantage help Bush some but 11% I’d question.
The ten counties that flipped are:
Bexar
Brewster (Sul Ross State University, Alpine)
Cameron
Culberson
Dallas
Frio
Harris
Kleberg (Texas A&M University-Kingsville)
Reeves
Val Verde
I”m sure illegals registered but I’m not sure they are that large of a voting contingent. However one is too many as they are illegal.
I'm a precinct chair in the West end of SD17 in the Katy area. Our area is heavy R and we are working with other Pct. chairs to ensure a good turnout in the runoff.
We can all thank Kyle Janek for forcing his seat into a Special Election. He bought a home in Austin last year. Then he called all of the Precinct Chairs together and promised us he would not resign as he still owned a residence in the district. He said the Austin home was so his wife and kids could be closer to him. So he was the only name on the Primary ballot.
Apparently, after the primary, Janek decided to resign and become a lobbyist. (Surely, he didn't lie directly to the Precinct Chairs he invited to dinner last fall.) Then Janek and his consultant, Blakemore, approached someone they wanted to put in office in SD17. Apparently they were offering to use Janek's campaign money to help their choosen candidate get elected. Unfortunately, their candidate was slightly outside of SD17. They had hoped to have their candidate identified, announce the resignation, in time to have the Special Election in May. This would give limited time for any opponents to organize. By the time they found another candidate, it was too late to run the Special Election in May - so it wound up on the November ballot.
Then Janek had Blakemore open a "Best for Texas" PAC using his campaign funds. So Janek and Blakemore and Austen Furse use their money and endorsements to intimidate other Republicans into not running for the seat. Blakemore produced attack ads - not against Democrat Chris Bell, but against Republican Joan Huffman. These ads were intentionally deceptive to the point that Furse called Huffman to apologise.
Fortunately, the Republican voters soundly rejected their campaign of lies and deception. Now we have to get the Republican voters to come back and vote in the Runoff. Bell will be trying to get his voters to come back, too. Who will be more motivated to vote in mid-December?
Of course, the county I live in--Travis--has been a lost cause for a long time. Ironically, I grew up in Jefferson County, which has always be hugely Democrat due to the big unions down there.
I have to wonder if Chris Bell will run for Mayor of Houston again. He’s made the circuit of running for any open office (and FAILed). He might as well start again.
Bill White (D-Houston-Clintonista) will likely run for Senate or Governor. He’s on his term limited final term.
Barack won't be on the ballot this time to draw out the loyal Democrats. And I would expect a drop off in the number of total voters from both parties. But don't runoffs and special elections traditionally draw out more Republican voters?
And are there "undecided voters" who go to vote on single seat elections?
And Jefferson County still votes democratic at least county wide. There are a few republicans that get elected but they are on a precinct level type position. The unions still hold power but not nearly as much as in the past. The plants, etc along with portions of the construction industry are still highly unionized. A lot of those members don’t live in Jefferson Cty now as they’ve moved to the outlying areas. BISD is now something like 70-75% minority in its enrollment.
IMHO—Beaumont is a good place to be FROM—LOL!
Wow, good job on supporting Huffman. Thank you.
Can we get the pro-life groups and churches *really* motivated? I know that Texas Alliance for Life PAC is supporting Huffman. Any way we could all work together on this?
What bothers me is that Chris Bell clearly wants to be a career politician who will throw his hat in the ring for any office, so long as it keeps him in the public arena.
Hey Chris, take a memo, the public doesn’t WANT you. In ANY office.
It usually comes down to voter identification and getting your voters out. The democrats have a huge advantage in that they were able to identify more of their voters because of Obama/Hillary primary. Of course there are other ways to ID voter affiliation, but they have a head start.
Is there any hope for Republicans in Texas? Will Texas be Massachusetts in a few years? Is it a foregone conclusion? Is there any hope whatsoever down there?
SD 17 is a truly bastardized layout. I didn’t realize the layout was so rambling. It starts over at the Sabine River and runs a narrow strip along the GOM west across Jefferson, Chambers, Galveston and Brasoria Counties. Then turns north at the west end of Brazoria county up into Fort Bend county and then north east towards Harris county, then north along the west edge of Harris until it stops north of I-10. What a design.
This design makes it hard for any one group to have an organizational impact because of the number of counties, towns, Congressional Districts, etc. I’m not sure how you can help anyone unless the state GOP gets heavily involved.
Looking at the county by county results Bell was the vote leader in all but Brazoria county. Galveston didn’t have a report but they had only two precincts.
Here is a copy of the results:
http://team1.sos.state.tx.us/enr/results/nov04_142_race0.htm
SD 17 layout:
http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/plans/plans01188/viewer.htm?Title=PLAN%2001188S%20-CURRENT%20STATE%20SENATE%20DISTRICTS
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