Free Republic

A plan to bring the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project closer to the heart of North Texas is getting a boost from Gov. Rick Perry. Since April, North Texas leaders have prodded state officials to alter their study maps to include a highway route that circles Dallas and Fort Worth. Until now, the state's preferred study area has prominently featured a route that only clips southeast Dallas County. The local lobbying efforts may have paid off. Mr. Perry has asked the Texas Department of Transportation to take into consideration North Texas' wishes, department officials said late Tuesday. In a letter to...

AUSTIN — Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman on Thursday asked Travis County prosecutors to investigate Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn for possibly misusing state employees to help her campaign. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle responded by distributing to reporters his office's policy manual, which states that criminal complaints filed by one candidate against another will not be investigated until after the election. "It's typical mud-slinging politics. So much for Kinky not being a typical mud-slinging politician," said Strayhorn spokesman Mark Sanders. Friedman filed his complaint based on reports in the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News that Strayhorn's state...

Three months from the election, the twisty four-way race for Texas Governor continues to keep political junkies on the edge of their seats. Republican Governor Rick Perry's support has dropped by five percentage points since our July poll, as Democrat Chris Bell escapes last place to draw even with the two Independents in the race. So now it's Perry 35%, Bell 18%, Carole Keeton Strayhorn (I) 18%, Kinky Friedman (I) 18%. Texas law makes those numbers look even better to Perry. There's no general-election runoff in Texas; if a candidate wins only a plurality on Election Day, he gets the...

Texas is facing a significant turning point. Gov. Rick Perry has called for the State to build a massive network of freeways with freight rail, commuter rail, utility lines, communication towers and oil and natural gas pipelines all concentrated into a single route. This massive corridor is intended to meet the future transportation needs of the state, which is expected to increase dramatically in the next 50 years. Texas highways are already packed with cars and trucks, and gridlock strangles our major cities day and night. While the lofty goals of Perry's transportation program are admirable, the program has been...

Strayhorn drops 'Grandma' issue after judge's ruling AUSTIN (AP) - An independent candidate for Texas governor abruptly dropped her lawsuit Thursday to have "Grandma" listed as her nickname on the November ballot, saying the legal battle would distract from her campaign. Hours earlier, a judge delivered Carole Keeton Strayhorn a setback, ruling the nickname was the secretary of state's decision and the court lacked jurisdiction. Secretary of State Roger Williams denied Strayhorn's request to have her name listed as "Carole Keeton 'Grandma' Strayhorn" on the Nov. 7 ballot, saying "Grandma" is a slogan. During a brief hearing, Judge Suzanne Covington...

Republican Governor Rick Perry The latest Rasmussen Reports election survey shows incumbent Governor Rick Perry (R) maintaining his lead over three opponents seeking his job. Forty percent (40%) of the 500 Texas voters surveyed now choose Perry, a two-point jump from last month’s poll. Independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Texas’ current comptroller of public accounts, and musician Kinky Friedman continue their mid-pack battle. Last month, Friedman earned support from 20% of voters compared to Strayhorn’s 19%. They’ve swapped positions in the current survey with Strayhorn now coming in second to Perry at 20% and Friedman placing third at 19%. Strayhorn...

Gubernatorial candidate Bell pays visit to Hub City BY BETH AARON AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Texas schools focus too much on standardized testing, and teacher salaries should be increased, gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell said. Speaking before members of the Texas Sheriff's Association on Monday, Bell, D-Houston, said the state needs to focus on reforming public education and health care and discussed why he supports stem cell research. "We do live in a big state with big dreams, but right now we face big challenges, he said from a podium in the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center Theater. "It's about a new way versus an...

(July 24, 2006)—As the state wraps up a series of Central Texas hearings this week on the massive Trans Texas Corridor project, it’s becoming apparent that opposition to the futuristic highway system is mounting, especially in rural areas, and that could pose a problem to Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election bid. Leroy Walters of Hillsboro, for example, has survived many a threat on the farm that's been in his family for 120 years including drought and tornadoes. But now Walters is concerned about the 600-mile superhighway that could plow across Texas, perhaps cutting through his fields and robbing his grandchildren of...

DENTON - "Grandma" lost her argument for a contrived ballot nickname. But Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn of Austin might have found a plank on which to build a campaign against Gov. Rick Perry. It's a plank 600 miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It's a giant, privately owned, multilane tollway that would part the Texas countryside the way the governor parts his ample hair. Strayhorn, a Republican running as an independent candidate, has criticized the Trans-Texas Corridor tollway plan loudly for months. So have the other principal challengers in this traffic jam of a race, novelist Kinky Friedman of Medina...

Court nixes part of Texas political map By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld most of the Republican-boosting Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay but threw out part, saying some of the new boundaries failed to protect minority voting rights. ADVERTISEMENT The fractured decision was a small victory for Democratic and minority groups who accused Republicans of an unconstitutional power grab in drawing boundaries that booted four Democratic incumbents from office. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060628/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_texas_redistricting Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said Hispanics do not have...

Democrat Bell says governor's race between him, Perry FORT WORTH (AP) - Criticizing Republican Gov. Rick Perry for what he called failures in education and health care, Democratic opponent Chris Bell said Friday the four-way race is really a two-man match. At the state Democratic convention, Bell downplayed the threat of independent candidates Kinky Friedman, an author and humorist, and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the state comptroller who opted out of the Republican primary against Perry. So far in the campaign, the jabs have been traded between Perry and Strayhorn. But this week as the Democratic convention approached, Perry began criticizing...

The developer of the first phase of the Trans Texas Corridor super highway toll system says Texas needs an addition: 600 miles of new rail line from Dallas-Fort Worth to Mexico for freight trains. That's the proposal from Cintra-Zachry, the Spanish and American partnership already working on the first section of toll road for cars and trucks, announced by state transportation officials Wednesday. The Trans Texas Corridor is the plan kick-started several years ago by Gov. Rick Perry to build 4,000-plus miles of tollways and railways that would incorporate oil and gas pipelines, utility and water lines, and even broadband...

SEATON, Texas - Gov. Rick Perry's challengers in the November election took turns Friday attacking his vision for the Trans Texas Corridor, a $184 billion plan to build megahighways around the state. Appealing to a crowd of mostly rural residents concerned about losing land to the project, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell was joined by independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman as he asked the crowd to "fire Rick Perry." More than 700 residents attended the meeting in Seaton, a town just east of Temple where the first leg of the corridor will likely be built within a...

The Blackland Coalition Is Holding A Forum For The Candidates For Governor... ...and guess who hasn't responded?Gubernatorial Candidates: Bell, Friedman and Strayhorn confirmed to speak on TransTexas Corridor and Eminent Domain March 24, Seaton Star Hall (5 Mi. East of Temple on Hwy 53 - 10842 State Hwy 53, Temple, Texas 76501), 7:00-9:00 PM, the Blackland Coalition will hold a meeting open to the public and interested parties. All four candidates running for Governor of the State of Texas were invited to speak, only Rick Perry has not responded. Chris Bell (D), Kinky Friedman (I) and Carole Strayhorn (I),...

Perry talks up conservatism in campaign kickoff BY JOHN REYNOLDS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his re-election campaign in the Hub City on Tuesday morning, saying he's the only conservative in the race for governor. "My friends, there will be only one conservative on the ballot this November," he told an enthusiastic crowd of about 100 on the Texas Tech campus. "The promise I have kept, and that I renew to you today is this - I will not only campaign as a conservative, I will continue to govern as a conservative," he said. Perry is seeking a second...

Reaction to Rep. Tom DeLay's announcement Saturday that he will abandon his bid to reclaim his post as majority leader: "We respect Congressman DeLay's decision to put the interests of the American people, the House of Representatives and the Republican Party first." — White House spokeswoman Erin Healy. "It is an honorable decision and the right decision for the House Republican Conference ... We expect that Tom will continue to help House Republicans succeed with our agenda as we move forward this year." — House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "For years, at the expense of the American people, the House...

Bell predicts upset victory in state race AUSTIN (AP) - Predicting he'll stage an upset victory in the Texas governor's race next year, former congressman Chris Bell made it official Friday that he's a candidate in the March 7 Democratic primary. Bell, filing his candidacy with the Texas Democratic Party, said he feels good about his standing i n recent polls, though he acknowledged he has "a long way to go before I pull this one off." Bell, 46, served on the Houston City Council for five years and represented part of the city in the U.S. House for one...

Seize this moment for reform An opportunity for a new covenant By CHRIS BELL THE political frenzy swirling around Tom DeLay's criminal indictment is about so much more than Republicans and Democrats; it's about more than Tom DeLay and Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. This all-too-common analysis being advanced by politicos and pundits alike misses the real point. During the past year, many have wanted to turn the ethics complaint I filed against DeLay into some sort of personal battle between DeLay and me, but that was never what the complaint was about. What has been missed, then and...

AUSTIN — Former Congressman Chris Bell launched his Democratic campaign for governor Sunday with a slap at GOP Gov. Rick Perry and a promise to apply "something as radical as common sense" to issues including education and abortion. "I am running for governor because my patience with Rick Perry has run out," Bell, a Houston lawyer, told a crowd of about 100 assembled before a Martin Luther King Jr. statue at the candidate's alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. "I am getting sick and tired of Texas being the national headquarters for the 'Thank God for Mississippi' Committee,"...

AUSTIN – Former Houston congressman Chris Bell, a Democrat who has been exploring a race for governor, told supporters in an e-mail today, "I’m in!" Bell was quick to acknowledge the odds in a state in which Republicans – including Gov. Rick Perry – hold every statewide elected office and a legislative majority. "If you ever want people to question your sanity, explore running for statewide office as a Democrat in Texas," wrote Bell. But he said the feedback has been encouraging. "Everyone agreed that it would be a tough road for any Democrat but, interestingly, the overwhelming majority of...