Politex

Local prosecutor has no idea why Perry removed him from Forensics Commission

A lawyer in the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office has no idea why Perry replaced him on the Texas Forensic Science Commission this week.

Perry abruptly removed three members of the board, causing the cancellation of Friday's high-profile meeting in Irving looking at whether a faulty investigation may have led to Texas executing an innocent man.

The panel was considering a report critical of the arson finding leading to Cameron Todd Willingham's 2004 execution for the deaths of his three daughters in a 1991 fire, according to the Associated Press.

Alan Levy is one of two local members that Perry removed from the board yesterday. The other, Aliece Watts, is a forensic scientist in Euless. 

Levy's term had expired in Sept. 1 but he didn't know that Perry was going to replace him.

"What his reasons for doing it, I have no idea," Levy said. "I feel like a jilted lover except that he’s prettier than I am."

Levy said he wasn't going to assume that Perry replaced the board members as a way to get Friday's meeting postponed.

"I’ve got my own thoughts but I don’t have any way of knowing," Levy said. "It’s just odd. I’ll assume that this was just part of the normal process but if it was, it certainly wasn’t handled the way it should have been."

Levy said he got a call Tuesday around 4:30 p.m. from someone in the governor's office. The person said the governor was "going in a different direction", Levy said.

"I felt like a decaying fish they were trying to dispose of," Levy said. "Since the job doesn’t pay anything, I’ve been thrown out of better places."

Levy had high praise for the way Commission Chair Samuel Bassett of Austin ran the Commission.

Levy said he had no idea why he, Watts and Bassett were replaced. 

"Sam and I were the two lawyers. Everybody else was a scientist," Levy said. "The only thing that links us is Gov. Perry which of course isn’t much of a link anymore."

-Aman Batheja

Geren may face third consecutive primary fight

Fort Worth Republican Rep. Charlie Geren may face his third primary fight in five years.

Matthew Krause of Fort Worth told the Star-Telegram last week he is exploring a run against Geren. The 29-year-old is a litigation attorney with Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based law firm affiliated with the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Geren was first elected to his seat in 2000. He fought off well-funded challenges from Republicans in the last two primaries. Both times, San Antonio school-voucher advocate James Leininger contributed heavily to Geren's opponent. In 2008, optometrist Tom Annunziato's primary campaign against Geren attracted statewide attention in part for the tone and content of Annunziato's campaign mailers.

Geren emerged this year as a key ally of newly elected House Speaker Joe Straus. In previous years, he was one of former House Speaker Tom Craddick's most vocal critics.

District 99 covers Northwest Tarrant County, including north and west Fort Worth, River Oaks, Azle, White Settlement, Lake Worth and Saginaw.

-Aman Batheja

Truitt draws primary challenger

State Rep. Vicki Truitt drew a primary challenger today as Giovanni Capriglione announced his candidacy for the District 98 seat. Truitt is the first member of the Tarrant County delegation to the state legislature to attract an opponent in the March 2010 primary.

Capriglione, 36, lives in Southlake and is a vice president with a small business investment company in Richardson. This is his first time running for public office, he said. He's in the process of setting up his campaign web site but his Twitter feed is up and running.

Truitt, a Southlake Republican, was one of the strongest proponents for a transportation funding package in the most recent legislative session. As some Republicans lawmakers and conservative groups criticized the measure, Truitt continued to push for it, acknowledging that it might lead to her attracting a primary opponent. The measure eventually failed.

At a rally on the Capitol steps in May, Truitt said, "I live in one of the most Republican districts in the state of Texas. Do you think I would be here if my people didn’t want this? They want it. And that’s why I’m willing to fall on the sword over it."

In his press release announcing his candidacy, Capriglione repeatedly criticizes efforts to place new taxes and fees on Texas residents. He is also opposed to "contemplated rail systems doomed to being delayed, over-budget and under-used," according to the release. 

-Aman Batheja

Barton outrage over terror arrest

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, sent out a statement Friday about the man arrested Thursday, suspected of trying to blow up the 60-story Fountain Place building in Dallas. The man, Hosam Maher Hussein Smadi lives in Italy, Texas, in Barton's district.

"Good old fashioned Texas justice would suggest that he is to be taken back to Italy and let the local justice of the peace handle him," Barton's statement said. "Mr. Smadi is lucky he's in America, where he's going to get actual justice instead of the vengeance that outfits like the Taliban and al Qaeda mete out. He deserves and I believe he will get a fair trial and if he's convicted, a punishment that fits the crime.

"This episode should remind us that we must resist slipping into a post-9/11 complacency," Barton said. "We're at war with terrorism because terrorists are at war with us."

-- Anna M. Tinsley

Cornyn to DeLay: don't give up your day job, whatever it is

Sen. John Cornyn apparently had the same reaction to Tom DeLay's "Wild Thing" gyrations that a lot of people who knew the former majority leader did: yech!

"I saw excerpts of it," said Cornyn, asked by Politex about DeLay during the senator's weekly conference call with reporters. "It was a remarkable performance," he said, not revealing, just yet, how he rated the dance.

Setting up what he really thinks of the "Dancing with the Stars" performance, Cornyn said of the hip-shaking, judge winking, air guitar playing DeLay:  "He has a lot of self-confidence."

And, then, the coup de grace: "He needs to keep his day job."

Asked what DeLay's day job was, Cornyn said, "whatever it is. He needs to keep his day job."

Cornyn, who cuts an elegant figure, was not having any of the allure of Hollywood. "I'm just not going to put myself in that position," he said.

Still, DeLay did well enough with the judges and the publice to survive the first week of competition. He and partner Cheryl Burke leave the cha-cha behind and dance again next week.

-- Maria Recio

Is there a new candidate in the governor's race?

This candidacy announcement from Zane Goggans is on YouTube. He offers a truly original campaign platform but we're pretty sure he's joking.

-Aman Batheja

DeLay, sans air guitar, disses GOP

 

Former House Majority Leader and Whip Tom DeLay, fresh from from what Roll Call newspaper labeled a "cringe-inducing" performance on "Dancing with the Stars," surfaced on his old beat -- that would be politics -- and blasted the GOP in an interview with PoliticsDaily.com.

Here's what the website reports:

"Republicans will pick up some seats in the House, maybe 20, but not enough to take back control."

Shaking his head with frustration, he added, "The Republican Party doesn't have the organization or leadership to take advantage of this dire political situation that Obama is in now. We have these grassroots sprouting up, but not the party organization to use them."

"Republicans are leaderless,'' he went on, "so we're just fighting each other instead of Obama's radical policies. There's no political leader of the party taking control. So, Republicans are just attacking each other for being too far right or too far left. Even Rush and Hannity are doing it."

So who does DeLay see as the GOP's up-and-comers? "No one," he replied in exasperation. "It's all the same old guys who were in leadership with me, and those old guys aren't the leaders the party needs."

He couldn't name one viable leader for the Republicans, saying that the party has no chance, "barring a miracle," of regaining the House or Senate next year.

-- Maria Recio

Gilbert calls Schieffer a copycat on education ideas

In one of the testiest exchanges in the Democratic race for governor, a spokesman for Hank Gilbert is accusing Tom Schieffer of copying Gilbert's ideas for education, an assertion which the Schieffer campaign flatly dismisses.

In an appearance before college students at the University of Texas at Arlington on Tuesday, Schieffer, a Fort Worth attorney and a former U.S. ambassador in the Bush Administration, offered several proposals for improving public education and reversing the state's drop-out rate. The appearance was reported in the Star-Telegram.

Gilbert spokesman Vince Leibowitz charged today that Schieffer's ideas came straight from education reform proposals that Gilbert, a Whitehouse rancher, has been touting this week in a statewide tour to launch his campaign for governor.

The proposals in question include increased emphasis on early child-hood education and expanded vocational education programs to put students onto career paths that don't require a college degree.

"Tom Schieffer is copycatting Hank Gilbert's education plan," Leibowitz said, contending that Schieffer is seizing on Gilbert's proposals to "breathe oxygen into a moribund campaign."  Schieffer announced for governor in March and has been described as a front-runner in the widening Democratic race, with an apparent lead  in fund-raising.

Schieffer spokesman Clay Robison, responding to Leibowitz's statement, said that his boss has "been addressing these issues for months.  Improving public education has been his No. 1 priority from the beginning of his campaign.

"He was talking about attacking high school drop-out rates and expanding early childhood education when Hank Gilbert was talking about running for agriculture commissioner" before deciding to enter the governor's race, Robison said.

Gilbert was the 2006 Democratic nominee for agriculture commissioner and had reportedly been considering another run at the post in 2010 before announcing for governor.

-- Dave Montgomery

Edwards gags at report of $20 billion Medicaid price hike

Rep. Chet Edwards reacted today to a Texas Health and Human Services Commission report that projected the Senate health care bill being considered by the Senate Finance Committee will cost Texas an additonal $20 billion over 10 years. "The health reform bills in both the House and Senate are still being amended, and the final product will change, but the possibility of a $20 billion unfunded mandate for Texas over 10 years is a very serious concern for me,” he said. Edwards, one of the state's senior Democrats, has been supportive of health care reform.

Sen. John Cornyn released the bad news about the Baucus bill (as in committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.) yesterday in his opening statement at the committee mark-up. But then, again, Cornyn is no fan of the bill anyway.

"With respect, Mr. Chairman, this proposal has major flaws," said Cornyn. "I plan to offer several amendments that will address some of those flaws.  But I should be honest:  this proposal taxes too much and grows government too much – and I am not optimistic that a few amendments will be able to change that."

-- Maria Recio

Budding politicos in Arlington grill Schieffer

Tom Schieffer touted the need to overhaul Texas' public education system in a question-and-answer session with political science students at the University of Texas at Arlington today.

About 200 students from Prof. Allan Saxe's Texas State and Local Government class grilled the Democratic candidate for governor on details of his education plan.

Schieffer cited new census figures ranking the state as dead last in proportion of residents with a high school education. He said he wants more Texas kids enrolled in early childhood development programs starting at age 3 because it will improve their chances of graduating from high school. 

He criticized the 2003 state legislature’s decision to deregulate tuition, charging that the soaring cost of higher education has made college unaffordable for too many.

A student told Schieffer she had planned on being a teacher but changed her mind after deciding the profession had become too focused on standardized testing. Schieffer agreed with her assessment but urged her to reconsider her career plan.

“How many of you can remember the name of your first grade teacher?” Schieffer asked. Nearly every hand in the room went up. “I rest my case.”

Schieffer has found himself in a crowded race for the Democratic nomination for governor. His other opponents include humorist Kinky Friedman, teacher Felix Alvarado, therapist Mark Thompson, and rancher Hank Gilbert. And former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle may join that list soon.

In a two-minute interview after the class, Schieffer described himself twice as “serious and thoughtful.” He dismissed remarks Friedman made in Southlake last week about how he is the only candidate who can energize the Democratic base statewide.

“I think if it hadn’t been for Kinky Friedman, the nightmare would have been over four years ago and Chris Bell would be the governor today," Schieffer said. "But because he did what he did, I think it enabled Rick Perry to be re-elected.”

-Aman Batheja