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SirKibbles posted:Nothing about the Castro brothers? I don't usually vote D but definitely going to have to it's kind of looking like Davis might have a shot here. I am worried about the economy imploding in the next few years and it getting blamed on Davis if she wins though. She's 12 points down. She has zero chance.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:46
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Tatum Girlparts posted:Davis isn't gonna win, but I don't think anyone expected her to, she's a symbolic run. Yeah but at this point she's gonna lose worse than Chris Bell. I figured it would be five points but it might be double digits. There is always the chance that there is a massive Latino turnout and that the polls just aren't capturing it but it don't look good.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:51
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Gerrymandering has nothing to do with statewide elections. US Congressional and Texas House and Senate districts are the only thing affected by gerrymandering. https://www.texastribune.org/ is a really good source for Texas politics so you might want to link it in the OP.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:54
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Her campaign has been a complete disaster up to this point. It hasn't helped that she made her bones on one of the hottest of the hot button divisive issues in politics and that she has been running away from that position since. She hired former state rep Chris Turner as her new campaign manager last week, so we'll see if she can turn it around. In bullshit news, Patrick has joined with other GOP legislators in calling for a special session to increase funding for border security. This will not happen.
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Jun 18, 2014 21:15
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Here's your official Texas GOP Platform.SirKibbles posted:You're going to get a team sports mentality as long as you have first past the post and only two parties so get used to it I guess. Here you go junior. The state convention is next week so they'll have their official platform out then. I don't expect it will differ greatly from the 2012 platform.
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Jun 18, 2014 21:22
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GlyphGryph posted:Why does that seem to talk about/to Austin specifically? Is "txdemocrats" just an Austin-specific group commenting on wider Texas politics issues to a local audience? Not sure what you mean?
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Jun 18, 2014 21:33
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fade5 posted:Oh hey, I wrote that up, glad I could help out. For those to lazy to click the link, (and because this fact needs to be shouted from the rooftops repeatedly): You are vastly overstating the power of the LBB and vastly oversimplifying the state budget process. If there are two people who are most responsible for the state budget, it's the chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations committees, but that is also a gross oversimplification. The 10 members of the LBB absolutely do not draw up the state budget. zoux fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 14:08
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It's terrible everywhere. Also, I'd rate a better than even chance of serious voucher legislation getting passed in 2015.
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Jul 7, 2014 21:03
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Boy oh boy I sure wish Obama would stop coming to Austin.
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Jul 10, 2014 14:40
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I work downtown so it's mostly for selfish, traffic related reasons that I wish he'd gently caress off.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:48
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SxSW is terrible but F1 is even worse. They shut down so much of downtown for an event that's held loving 20 miles outside of town.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:35
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Fifth Circuit upheld UT's affirmative action policy. Take that white girl who didn't make the top ten percent cutoff so pretended that it was black people that meant that she couldn't go to UT but still got to go to a tier one university anyway.
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Jul 16, 2014 14:20
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The bigger "problem" with admission to UT is the top 10% rule, which guarantees admission into any state university if you graduate in the top 10% of your class. But everyone pretty much picks UT. They eventually indexed it so that admissions cap out at a percentage of the incoming class (I think it's 75%) but before that something like 95% of an incoming freshman class at UT was admitted under top ten. So basically admissions officials have to figure out how to meet diversity standards with only five percent of the incoming class.
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Jul 16, 2014 15:35
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It was implemented to specifically increase diversity at state universities but I'm not sure there's any good data showing it was effective. I'm not sure why a blanket top ten rule would benefit black and Hispanic students over white students, I'd think that diversity measures would need to be more targeted than that.
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Jul 16, 2014 15:47
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Race based criteria are also the only ones they complain about. Legacies, international, sports, and all the myriad other categories that might advantage an applicant are ignored, it's only affirmative action, i.e. the one that's actually trying to improve society.
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Jul 16, 2014 15:59
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Well I'd say that they should get rid of top ten and then implement better, more targeted AA policies but yeah like that's gonna get through the legislature ever.
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Jul 16, 2014 16:12
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I went to an exceedingly expensive private liberal arts school and I wish I would've gone to UT instead 
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Jul 16, 2014 16:28
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What's 25x25? I will say this about A&M, if you are a college football fan, you should see at least one game at Kyle Field. It's surreal.
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Jul 16, 2014 16:31
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Perry's gonna be long gone by the time Powers is ousted, if he even ends up leaving.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:21
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Shear Modulus posted:Did you not see the discussion upthread? Powers is gone next June. There's a reason he wants to stick around past the next legislative session. Powers is the Legislature's guy, they have gone to bat for him multiple times. They impeached a regent basically for loving with Powers. Powers thinks that the Legislature is going to back him up hardcore and he'll get to hang around. Cigarroa and Perry will both be gone by next June, and the real behind-the-scenes reason for all this Powers foofaraw is that it's actually a dickwaving contest between two branches of state government. In fact, dudes being mean to Powers caused Dewhurst to cry on the dais during a brief impromptu speech defending him.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:28
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Nonsense posted:Also a big gently caress you to Time Warner for cutting off SA news to my town. Get another cable provider! You know how long it took TWC to carry the Longhorn Network in Austin? Like a year and a half.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:43
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Badger of Basra posted:To be fair it always seemed to me like the Longhorn Network was a dumb idea, but I didn't follow it that closely. The House committee is going to have a meeting on August 5th where it is expected they will recommend impeachment.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:56
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Wendy getting the nom was due to the fact that she was the only Texas Democrat that anybody could recognize.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:12
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You shouldn't though, she's nuts.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:20
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I went to SU in Georgetown because my grades guaranteed me a scholarship and nobody told me about Williamson County! I'm from Bryan so I didn't want to go to A&M and my high school was loving huge and I wanted to go to a small school.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:48
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:I'm not actually a real Texan since I was born in southern California and don't say "y'all" so you'll have to tell me, what's wrong with Southwestern/Williamson county? Google "John Bradley DA". WillCo is as conservative and its police are as overzealous as Travis county is liberal and lax. And they hate college students.
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Jul 16, 2014 22:55
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By the by the House Committee Charged with Such Things officially censured Wallace Hall yesterday. The committee vice-chair was adamant that this did not take impeachment off the table but I think if they were going to impeach him they'd have done it yesterday. Also Wendy put out her first TV ad and well, I dunno guys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV3aMuXsOVQ
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Aug 12, 2014 18:19
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1stGear posted:Ehhhhhh, I'd need to know more about this case. Otherwise, this veers uncomfortably close to the same "Hilary defended a rapist!" garbage. I'm sure Gardner Selby and politifact Texas are on the case! Actually, they are: http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2014/aug/08/wendy-davis/wendy-davis-claim-about-hiring-salesman-rapist-lac/
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Aug 12, 2014 18:23
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I'd be surprised if he gets convicted but adios mofo to his Presidential chances.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:10
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Hard to campaign when you're standing trial.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:13
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In no world is this a "good thing" for Rick Perry.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:21
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Doom Rooster posted:I hate Perry as much as the next guy, but I feel that "I'm going to defund the PUBLIC INTEGRITY Unit, if the PUBLIC INTEGRITY Unit is still lead by THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY WHO JUST GOT OUT OF A 20 DAY JAIL SENTENCE FOR DUI.", is a pretty defensible position. The case isn't going to be "did I do it" because he clearly did. His lawyers are going to have to argue that what he did was within the Constitutional bounds of his office. Whether or not he was justified in a moral sense has nothing to do with if he was justified in a legal sense. Also he wanted her to step down because then he would've been able to personally appoint a replacement to serve out her term until '16 The PIU/Travis Co. DA has always had an extremely adversarial relationship with the state legislature, as it tends to be miles more liberal than the state government. Ronnie Earle, when he was DA, basically made a hobby of trying to sue and convict state Republicans all day long. There is a long-standing grudge between the Travis Co. DA and the Governor's office and this whole PIU foofaraw is about political payback.
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Aug 18, 2014 15:11
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Oh boy once again the school finance system has been ruled unconsitutional. That this would be the ruling is obvious because it is impossible to devise a school finance system that meets the requirements of the Texas constitution. What now? Next session the Legislature will tweak the finance system somewhat but will not make the ultimate fix of creating a statewide property tax so they will be back in 2019 to try again, as it takes about four years for this stuff to work its way through the courts.
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Aug 28, 2014 20:36
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PostNouveau posted:Why's that? Because of the prohibition of a statewide property tax. The state constitution requires that education be "equitable and adequate" which means that basically you have to give all the districts the exact same amount of money per student, but because funding comes from the district level and not the state level you cannot have equitable distribution of money statewide due to the wide variation in property tax revenue district to district. When the state tips too close to the "statewide property tax" side of the equation, the conservatives come out and sue on the statewide property tax violation, and when it gets too far away the liberals sue on the "equitable and adequate" side of the equation. It's the latter side we're on now. As long as there exists in the constitution a prohibition on a statewide property tax, there will never be equitable distribution of school money. e: also important is the statewide imposed cap of $1.50 per $100 valuation on property tax. This causes two problems; the first is that because almost every ISD in the state is at that cap, the state courts have ruled it constitutes a de factor statewide property tax. The second is that obviously districts with more property wealth are going to reap so, so much more money than ones that don't, and the poor districts have no remedy because they can only raise taxes so high. zoux fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 20:51
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ReidRansom posted:It'd be simpler if we just went with a state income tax, of course, but that's a non-starter for obvious reasons. That would literally in one fell swoop solve the entire problem they have been fighting in court since Edgewood.
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Aug 28, 2014 21:04
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Shear Modulus posted:Maybe we could go full socialism and set up a PUF-alike for public K-12 and fund it through taxing energy revenues or leasing public mineral rights. Actually...
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Aug 28, 2014 21:06
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PostNouveau posted:Yeah, they'll never implement an income tax. Can the state sales tax be diverted to education? The "Bullock Amendment" in the Texas Constitution would require a 2/3's public referendum vote before a statewide income tax is implemented and let's all think about how likely that is. As to your second question, I'm not sure. Also we take a huge part of our oil and gas severance tax revenue and cram it into a giant pot of money we aren't ever allowed to touch.
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Aug 28, 2014 21:12
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Shear Modulus posted:Is this distinct from the rainy day fund that Perry and the legislature have refused to tap for any of the plethora of rainy day situations including Katrina, Rita and the financial crisis? Nope it is the RDF 
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Aug 28, 2014 21:38
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Badger of Basra posted:Do they not spend out of the RDF simply because Spending Bad, or are they trying to do something else with it? It's the former. There's a large contingent in the state legislature that say if we appropriate any RDF money, it should be in the form of (property) tax rebates only.
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Aug 29, 2014 04:30
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Abbott backed out of his only statewide televised debate with Davis. He said that it's because they couldn't agree on a format, despite a letter saying they agreed to the format.
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Aug 29, 2014 17:17
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