Harvey Kronberg of the Austin-based political news website Quorum Report says religious-right pressure groups are running a deceitful campaign in the contest among Republicans for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. Many religious-righters claim Speaker Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican, hasn’t been conservative enough for them (a bogus charge, other Republicans say). And Kronberg reports that religious-right groups are using an especially offensive line of attack:
“Now, the so-called grassroots effort has crossed over the line with coordinated email and robocall [recorded phone messages] programs calling for a true Christian speaker. Straus is Jewish.
Republicans won an enormous victory on Election Day. How they govern themselves will tell us a lot about how they intend to govern the rest of us.”
Listen to Kronberg’s full commentary for Austin’s News 8 cable channel here.
Religious-right pressure groups want a speaker like Warren Chisum of Pampa or Ken Paxton of McKinney. Those two rigid ideologues are more likely to promote the right’s divisive “culture war” agenda — even if it distracts from the Legislature’s key task of closing a massive budget deficit that threatens to further damage the state’s economy.
TFN Insider looked at the religious right’s campaign against Straus here.
Frankly, I hope that the legislature gets so kooky and dysfunctional that it will start to send business out of state, chill growth, make Texas a laughingstock, and get things so screwed up that the courts are swamped with lawsuits. Maybe finally the moderate elements will have had enough and will take charge, impeaching Rick Perry, etc.
Just let them screw things up as much as possible. It’s not going to matter for most people, things are already screwed up for them. Maybe this will teach the Texas voter about exercising his duty to vote, next time.
It is not too surprising that they would make such an attack. Many of these folks have always had problems with the last 4 of their Commandments. [For those keeping score at home that would be adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, and coveting.]