A House of Strangers Calls for a Shrewd Leader
While the voters were having their say on Tuesday, State Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, sent a note to his fellow House members saying he would be running for the chamber's top job. A few days later, he sent another one that started to lay out his case against Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. He said the election results showed the incumbent’s weaknesses — mainly that he didn’t protect legislators as well as Hughes thought he should have.
These elections are weird; like running for class president. Every candidate knows every voter. Every voter knows every voter. It’s ...
Comments (9)
gypsy314 ne
Anyone but rhino Joe Straus it is past time to rid the speakership of rhino Joe.
MM MM
It's RINO (Republican In Name Only) not RHINO. RHINO is short for Rhinoceros. It is an animal that is native to Africa and Southern Asia, not Austin. If you are going to complain about someone then at least get the acronym right. Straus is no RINO. He's a common sense republican. We need more like him.
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We' are getting all those new faces for a REASON. Dissatisfaction with how things are being run in Austin- which means it's time for different leadership.
Weben Had
Joe Straus is an arogant, self-centered, egotistic, power hungry, be-littling, money hungry, back-room dealing individual! I hope and pray our elected house members new and old can see this as well and not give him another term as Speaker. He is not good for Texas!
Weben Had
Joe Straus and David Dwehurst are the poster-boys for the longtime Texas corrupt political establishment. They think their money and power supersedes the will of the people! We need to show them "WE The People" are in control and vote for those with strict conservative values and leadership such as Bryan Hughes for Speaker and Ted Cruz for U.S. senate!
My Homie
I'm disgusted at Ramsey's blatant anti-semitism... to call him "shrewd" just because he's Jewish is disgusting.
JJ Baskin
My Homie, you are looking too hard. The headline, not the article, reads that the speaker of a legislative body will need to have "sharp powers of judgment" and/or be "astute" and then it talks about the two people that wish to be speaker over that body of strangers. Ramsey never brought up religion in the article, and he may not even have been the one who assigned the headline.
My cursory search of the word on the Tribune website suggests that Ramsey used the word "shrewd" another time to describe former house speaker Billy Clayton, who was not Jewish, but was in fact a speaker of a legislative body.
Under a blog handle, you are accusing him of some pretty bad stuff. Make your case under your own name and show us a pattern of anti-Semitic writing, and I'll listen. Until then, your drive-by post does nothing to advance our understanding of state politics or journalism, and only serves to dilute the meaning of anti-Semitism when someone truly does hold that unfortunate prejudice.
Ross Ramsey is a respected journalist with a long history of fair and accurate reporting and respected by people of all stripes and political leanings. He deserves better than your disgusting, anonymous cheap shot. So do the rest of us.
Bill Carson
Let us not forget that Straus became Speaker as a SOPHOMORE legislator. Some were irked that he had not paid his dues. When he was elected the leader of the House, he had less legislative experience than Barack Obama had as the junior senator of Illinois.
Also, this is less about power and factions than it is about effective leadership. How many members of the House sponsored bills in the last session that died when the clock ran out? Straus' late committee appointments meant that the members started out behind the eight ball. In fact, in the last two sessions, Straus' committee assignments were announced TWO WEEKS later than his predecessor Craddick made his assignments, which effectively means that the already short legislative session was two weeks shorter.
My Homie
JJ Baskin - wow, not only did I get you to waste time searching to validate your own preconception, but I got you to address me as "My Homie". That alone was worth the few minutes of my time.
My post was simply an example of reductio ad absurdum -- it seems that everyone critical of the Speaker gets labled as an anti-Semite at some point. THAT is absurd. To gently tease Ross for that which he (and other media outlets) are prone to knee-jerk about was just too hard to pass up.
Now, your point "Ross Ramsey is a respected journalist with a long history of fair and accurate reporting " - THAT is also absurd. Really absurd. Is JJ Baskin a nom de plume for Reeve?