Voter fraud fraud

Some of the first bills filed for the upcoming state legislative session would require photo ID to vote. I find it absolutely fascinating that the Republicans in the Texas House are claiming that the Voter ID bill they’re pushing is necessary in order to prevent a serious problem with voter fraud. If voter fraud is really the problem they’ve been claiming it is then the party that won 99 of 150 seats, gaining 23, must be the perpetrators.

How this is really more important than stimulating jobs for the hundreds of thousands of Texans who are out of work I don’t know.

Improve National Security and address the budget deficit

It's time for the Senate to cut our bloated nuclear stockpiles and restore inspections of Russia's nuclear arsenal by approving the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START. Since it was signed in April, many Democrats and Republicans have said the Senate should ratify the treaty. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it has “the unanimous support of America's military leadership.”

Treaties require deliberation, but senators have all the information necessary to reach a decision on New START. In September, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended ratification by a 14-4 vote.

Let's put politics aside and national security first by ratifying New START this year. Call Sens. Hutchison and Cornyn and urge them to help secure our future by voting to ratify.

Mixed up priorities

Republicans won a whopping majority in the state house on November 2 and within days the chairs of various committees have released a letter naming their priorities for the coming session. In their top ten they include “passing a photo ID requirement as a protection against voter fraud”, but if voter fraud is really as rampant as they seem to believe doesn’t that call into question the legitimacy of their recent overwhelming victory?

Other topics in the letter include “ensuring businesses are not stifled by over-taxation, excess regulation or unfair litigation.” This should be deciphered as raising fees - which hurt small and startup businesses because they aren’t related to profits, continuing to allow air and water pollution by gas producers in the Barnett Shale – because being able to light your tap water on fire isn’t a problem, and limiting the rights of individuals to seek redress when a business or doctor has harmed them. The chairs claim that these steps will help the Texas economy and create jobs.

The chairs go on to claim that Speaker Straus is “a staunch fiscal conservative in the model of President Reagan”. I can’t say whether or not Straus is a fiscal conservative, but Reagan certainly wasn’t as he raised taxes twice and massively increased the size of the federal government in his eight years as president. Given their failure to know recent history it’s no wonder they have chosen to ignore the states abysmal education record or seek any means to improve it.