Armed with a 18-12 GOP edge in the Texas Senate, a 99-51 GOP margin in the Texas House that became a 101-49 one no thanks to two DINO sellouts and the 2003 Delaymandering, and a GOP governor who has been in the chair since Junior went to Washington in 2001, liberal progressive forces in Texas are gearing up for what looks like on the surface is going to be an ugly session for us.
Tom DeLay may be headed to jail, but the Delaymandering is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican party of Texas.
One of the DINO sellouts was a Latino rep from Hidalgo County down in the Valley, Aaron Peña. He got himself elected as a Democrat, then switched parties. It's a stunt I saw far too often in the 80's and early 90's when white candidates would use Democratic votes to get elected, then switch parties after they won.
As much as I dislike former Senator Phil Gramm, he at least had the decency to resign and run in a special election when he switched parties. Pena isn't even giving his constituents that opportunity because he knows he'll lose.
The Lege will have to deal with an $18 billion budget deficit, a serious battle between the Tea Klux Klan wing and GOP moderates over who becomes the Speaker of the Texas House and what promises to be an ugly reapportionment battle since we're picking up 4 new congressional seats before they tackle any right wing social issues such as their clone of Arizona's SB 1070.
And to borrow the words of my favorite pilot from Battlestar Galactica, "We'll do what we always do. Fight 'em until we can't."
And fight is what we'll have to do this session.
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