By Jennifer Bendery, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
It's not Halloween for another week and a half, but you wouldn't know it by the crowd of people who came armed with "Bye Bye Tom DeLay" signs and Grim Reaper costumes on Friday to greet U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Sugarland) at the Travis County courthouse, where the congressman was scheduled to appear for his arraignment on conspiracy and money laundering charges.
While DeLay slipped in and out of the building through a side door, his attorney Dick DeGuerin emerged from the front doors of the courthouse with three messages for the press: he filed a motion to remove the presiding judge, he filed a motion to change the venue and he is convinced that any jury that hears the evidence will conclude that DeLay never committed a crime.
Shortly after his arraignment, the Sugarland legislator made a quick appearance at the State Capitol to declare his innocence and to state that he will not let a prosecutor like Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, "who pursues his political enemies by abusing the law and manufacturing baseless charges, wreck our justice system." The day before his arraignment, DeLay was booked in Houston, where he was photographed, fingerprinted and released on $10,000 bond.
One of the state legislators who allegedly received illegal corporate cash from DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority PAC on Thursday announced that he will resign from his office effective Nov. 1, 2005. Rep. Todd Baxter (R-Austin) said he is stepping down before his term is up in order to focus on his family and professional career. Because of the "high probability of a special session," he said he chose to resign sooner than later to give voters more time to find a new candidate.
Meanwhile, Sen. Frank Madla (D-San Antonio) is still working on getting the message out that he is running for reelection to the Texas Senate. He "emphatically declared" that rumors floating around about his retirement are untrue. "Capitol rumors on their best day are more wrong than right," said Madla. "In my case, they are completely wrong. I am running for reelection and I fully intend to win." He reminded that he already announced his candidacy and has been crisscrossing the district for weeks.
Setting the agenda for the issues that House committees will study over the next year, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) on Wednesday released the Interim Charges for the 79th Legislature. By the day's end, at least one group is already unhappy with Craddick's priorities for the House Insurance Committee, which is not slated to address insurance reform.
"Texas is in the midst of an ongoing insurance crisis that has left millions of Texans reeling from ongoing insurance overcharges," said Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch. "The House leadership may not be concerned about price gouging on the part of insurance companies, but average Texans sure are." He urged Craddick to reconsider having the committee "study an issue that has been plaguing Texans for far too long."
Gov. Rick Perry spent much of this week making himself heard in Washington, D.C. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, Perry emphasized the need to keep the first response to disasters in the hands of state and local authorities over proposals to federalize the response to all disasters. The first response to any natural or man-made disaster must come from authorities armed with police officers and EMTs who respond to emergencies on a daily basis, he said.
If the federal government assumed control of first response to catastrophes, "I believe it would add another layer of bureaucracy, create indecisiveness, lead to rampant miscommunications and cost lives," said Perry. On Wednesday, the governor testified on the issue of federalizing an emergency response before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security.
Eleven Texas House members on Tuesday sent a letter to President Bush asking him to focus on immigration reform in Texas and grant additional aid to border communities. Representatives who signed onto the letter include Linda Harper-Brown (R-Irving), Dan Flynn (R-Van), Bill Keffer (R-Dallas), Jodie Laubenberg (R-Parker), Bill Zedler (R-Arlington), Glenn Hegar (R-Katy), Corbin Van Arsdale (R-Houston), Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood), Jim Jackson (R-Dallas), Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) and Dan Gattis (R-Georgetown). "We are asking our President to look at Texas immigration concerns more closely," said Taylor. "Texas border communities spend $100 million every year on illegal immigrants, and we are not seeing enough federal aid."
Afterthought: Two weeks ago, it was Gov. Perry vs. Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry over the 100th Red River Shootout between the University of Texas and Oklahoma University football teams at the Cotton Bowl. This week, U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) challenged Illinois Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) to a bi-partisan wager on the outcome of the 2005 World Series Championship. The senators representing the champions will receive a basket of products from the opposing team's home state.
Let's keep it clean, dear senators. As if the 'red state vs. blue state' rivalry needs more heating up....