Weak

Al Edwards, who was a mediocre, if colorful, member of the Texas House of Representatives for too long, wants his old job back. Edwards represented a predominantly African American district in central Houston for 26 years, and was defeated in the 2006 Democratic primary by businessman Borris Miles.

Edwards sent out an email laying out the case for his candidacy. His case? In short: he wants to keep his district from going to the Republicans (after all, the district only gave Maria Luisa Alarado 67% of the vote against David Dewhurst in 2006), he invented Juneteenth, and he wants to protect the people of his district from eminent domain. Seriously. Check out his website for more of his salutary accomplishments. My favorite part: his bio calls him "Former Texas Honorable Al Edwards." Former?

Oddly enough, he neglects to mention his critical role in protecting Texans from sexy cheerleading, which he identified as the cause of the most of the state's ills, including "the herpes" and AIDS. His efforts were covered by the national media, including this memorable segment from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart:



He also neglected to mention that he was a Craddick D. I wonder if he'll bring that up in his campaign?

The Difference Between the House and Senate, Part 387

Rummaging around on some other blogs brought me to the website of the Texas Heritage Alliance, a right-wing political organization masquerading as patriotic Christians. The Texas Heritage Alliance is the new nom de guerre of the Free Market Foundation and its affiliated FreePAC.

FreePAC had its fifteen minutes of infamy when, in 2002, is sent out a series of factually inaccurate, hateful mailers trying to sabotage the re-election chances of Republican elected officials like state Senators Bill Ratliff and Jeff Wentworth and state Representatives Brian McCall and (now Senator) Kip Averitt. Wentworth's mailer accused him of being "extremely liberal" because he'd voted for the hate-crimes legislation and was a supporter of gay rights. Wentworth, who voted against a hate crimes bill in 2001 and later authored the Defense of Marriage Act in 2003, was understandably outraged. After all, he may be a parking scofflaw, but he's no milquetoast liberal.

Wentworth, Ratliff and the others condemned FreePAC and its hateful tactics -- Ratliff called their mailers "political pornography" -- and the uproar forced FreePAC to go underground for a while. The discredited organization resurfaced as the Heritage Alliance, explained founder Richard Ford, "to signify a unified effort of economic and social conservatives passing those values onto future generations."

Anyway, the Heritage Alliance has a Legislators' Scorecard on its website, ranking all 150 House members and 31 Senators according to their votes on conservative issues like supporting Tom Craddick for Speaker (RV1) and placing "In God We Trust" above the dais in the House Chamber (RV16). In all, there are 67 House votes and 53 Senate votes analyzed to produce a ranking.

I think it's interesting that the Senators' scores are more clustered than the House members'. While House scores range from a low of 3 (Paul Moreno) to a high of 96 (Jodie Laubenberg), the Senate scores range only from a low of 40 (Eliot Shapleigh) to a high of 79 (Robert Nichols). In other words, the Senate is less extreme in the swing of its members' views than the House.

Interesting question: why are four of the five most conservative members of the House (Laubenberg, Brown, Crabb, Harper-Brown, and Riddle) women?

Friday Night Writes

Paul Burka has two terrific posts tonight on his BurkaBlog. Burka is the Senior Executive Editor of Texas Monthly and one of the best political reports in the state -- or, for my money, the nation.

The first is on Tom Craddick's name ID and favorable/unfavorable ratings. Burka shares some numbers he heard from a Republican political consultant, which I in turn share with you:

1. Craddick's name ID is "higher than any speaker of the modern era," which means starting with Billy Clayton. I'm a little surprised to know that anybody bothered to measure the speaker's name ID before Craddick.
2. Among Republican primary voters, Craddick's favorable/unfavorable is 2 to 1 negative.
3. Among independent voters, Craddick's favorable/unfavorable is 6 to 1 negative.
4. Among Democrats, Craddick's favorable/unfavorable is 10 to 1 negative.

The last number, while not that surprising, may be the most interesting. Among Democratic primary voters, Tom Craddick's name is toxic. I am sure each of the Craddick Ds (there are about 15 of them) has a sane, rational case for having supported Craddick in the past, but they may never get to make it. Any candidate contemplating a run against a Craddick D just has to send around a picture of Craddick and said Craddick D getting all kissy-face, and it may all be over but the crying.

As Harvey Kronberg said last March, "the Craddick Democrats have to come away from this session with something meaningful and it may boil down to a handful of issues. ... It's a fascinating political game. The Craddick Democrats need a significant win or some won't be coming back in two years. As go their fortunes, so go those of Craddick." Will the Craddick Ds be able to make the case that their district is better off for their having supported Craddick?

The second is a well-written, thoughtful analysis of Karl Rove's impact on our politics titled "Requiem for a Heavyweight." It is fascinating reading. Go to the BurkaBlog and scroll down.

It's 10:00 P.M. -- Do You Know Where Your Voting Machine Is?

For years, Texas has been embroiled in a controversy over electronic voting systems, with the partisans generally dividing into three camps:

1. Electronic voting technologies are from the pit of hell and we need to return to hand-counted paper ballots for all elections;
2. Electronic voting technologies create risks of tampering with elections and invading voters' privacy; and
3. "What are those other two groups complaining about?"

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen conducted an exhaustive review of voting machine security this summer, including systems used in many Texas counties. As Houston Chronicle political writer Kristen Mack points out in a column today, that makes the review relevant to Texas. Mack summarizes the review, conducted by researchers at the University of California system, well: "[A]bsent tighter [security] procedures, hackers could alter vote totals, violate the privacy of individual voters and delete audit trails" on even the most sophisticated systems.

The key phrase, obviously, is "absent tighter security procedures." The federal Election Assistance Commission and the Elections Division of the Texas Secretary of State's office have issued guidelines for how to improve voting system security. Although many counties -- notably Travis -- have well-established election security protocols, most counties do not.

During the last legislative session, Senator Royce West and Representative Rafael Anchia introduced bills to mandate basic voting system security procedures in each county. Neither bill got anywhere, even with the support of county elections administrators and clean voting advocates. But, as the California study shows, standardized security procedures are necessary to protect the integrity of elections, no matter how well designed the voting systems may be.

Bowen began the "top-to-bottom" review of election systems in May, saying "California voters are entitled to have their votes counted exactly as they were cast." University of California researchers divided into teams to review documents and studies associated with each voting system, examine the computer source code each machine relies on, and even a "penetration attack" to see if the system’s security could be compromised. Their reports are available here, but here's the highlight reel:

Diebold systems, used in two of Texas' largest counties (#6 El Paso and #8 Collin) are plagues by "serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes. These vulnerabilities include:

• Vulnerability to malicious software. The Diebold software contains vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to install malicious software on voting machines or on the election management system. Malicious software could cause votes to be recorded incorrectly or to be miscounted, possibly altering election results. It could also prevent voting machines from accepting votes, potentially causing long lines or disenfranchising voters.
• Susceptibility to viruses. The Diebold system is susceptible to computer viruses that propagate from voting machine to voting machine and between voting machines and the election management system. A virus could allow an attacker who only had access to a few machines or memory cards, or possibly to only one, to spread malicious software to most, if not all, of a county’s voting machines. Thus, large-scale election fraud in the Diebold system does not necessarily require physical access to a large number of voting machines.
• Failure to protect ballot secrecy. Both the electronic and paper records of the Diebold AV-TSX contain enough information to compromise the secrecy of the ballot. The AV-TSX records votes in the order in which they are cast, and it records the time that each vote is cast. As a result, it is possible for election workers who have access to the electronic or paper records and who have observed the order in which individuals have cast their ballots to discover how those individuals voted. Moreover, even if this vulnerability is never exploited, the fact that the AV-TSX makes it possible for officials to determine how individuals voted may be detrimental to voter confidence and participation.
• Vulnerability to malicious insiders. The Diebold system lacks adequate controls to ensure that county workers with access to the GEMS central election management system do not exceed their authority. Anyone with access to a county’s GEMS server could tamper with ballot definitions or election results and could also introduce malicious software into the GEMS server itself or into the county’s voting machines.

The Hart Intercivic systems, including the eSlate machines used in five of Texas' biggest counties (#1 Harris, #3 Tarrant, #5 Travis, #9 Denton and #10 Fort Bend) are also vulnerable to attack. Their biggest problem is that the machines are all linked together under the assumption that every individual machine is secure. This can cause problems:

Unsecured network interfaces. Network interfaces in the Hart system are not secured against direct attack. Voters can connect to unsecured network links in a polling place to subvert eSlates, as well as to eavesdrop on cast votes and to inject new votes. Poll workers can connect to JBCs or eScans over the management interfaces and perform back-office functions such as modifying the device software. The impact of this is that a malicious voter could potentially take over one or more eSlates in a precinct and a malicious poll worker could potentially take over all the devices in a precinct. The subverted machines could then be used to produce any results of the attacker’s choice, regardless of voter input. We emphasize that these are not bugs in the Hart software, but rather features intentionally designed into the system which can be used in a fashion for which they were never intended.
Vulnerability to malicious inputs. Because networked devices may be connected to other, potentially malicious devices, they must be prepared to accept robustly any input provided by such devices. The Hart software routinely fails to check the correctness of inputs from other components, and then proceeds to use those inputs in unsafe ways. The most damaging example of this is that SERVO, which is used to back up and verify the correctness of polling place devices can itself be compromised from those same devices. This implies that an attacker could subvert a single polling place device, through it subvert SERVO, and then use SERVO to reprogram every polling place device in the county. Although we have tested some individual components of this attack, we did not have time to confirm it in an end-to-end test.
No or insecure use of cryptography. The standard method for securing network communication of the type in use in the Hart system is to use a cryptographic security protocol. However, we found a notable lack of such techniques in Hart’s system. Instead, communications between devices generally happen in the clear, making attack far easier. Cryptography is used for MBBs, but the key management involves a single county-wide symmetric key that, if revealed, would allow an attacker to forge ballot information and election results. This key is stored insecurely in vulnerable polling-place devices, with the result that compromise of a single polling place device enables an attacker to forge election MBBs carrying election results for any device in the county.
Failure to protect ballot secrecy. Hart’s system fails to adequately protect ballot secrecy. A poll worker or election official with access to the raw ballot records can reconstruct the order in which those votes were cast. Combined with information about the order in which voters cast their votes, this can be used to reconstruct how each voter voted. In the case of the DRE, it is also possible to reconstruct, for each vote, the order in which the votes were authorized. Combined with information about the order in which voters were authorized, this can likewise be used to reconstruct how each voter voted. Furthermore, a voter who has temporary access to an eSlate device can extract and reconstruct all the votes cast on that device up to that point in time. He may be able to similarly reconstruct all votes cast on any other eSlate connected to the same JBC.

ES&S, which manufactures the systems used in three of Texas' largest counties (#2 Dallas, #4 Bexar and #7 Hidalgo) refused to participate in the review, denying the Secretary of State access to its source codes. In response, Bowen moved to gather escrowed copies (as required by ES&S's certification) of the source codes for review.

The study also examined the accessibility of each of the voting systems. Such accessibility is required by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and by state laws. The study concluded that "[a]lthough each of the tested voting systems included some accessibility accommodations, none met the accessibility requirements of current law and none performed satisfactorily in test voting by persons with a range of disabilities and alternate language needs."

John Smithee to Retire?

Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex is reporting that State Representative John Smithee (above) is retiring. The soon-to-be-56-year old lawyer is a 22-year veteran of the House and chaired the House Insurance Committee for several sessions.

Smithee's middle name is True, and that's probably a good indicator of the regard in which he was held by the Capitol crowd. He is a rural conservative but not an ideologue His office door is always open to people and he'll hear you out, even if he is not going to agree with you. And he's a straight shooter, so you know where you stand with him.

Vince goes on the speculate that the Republican Party will hunt for a very conservative candidate to replace him. The district is very Republican and Smithee got 86.5 percent of the vote in cruising to re-election last fall. These electoral dynamics are favorable for extremist candidates. I hope the district chooses someone who has John's openness and sense of balance.

The New Face of the Republican Party of Texas

Sometimes this stuff just writes itself.

The Houston Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among others, are reporting that Talmadge Heflin is the new executive director of the Texas Republican Party.

Heflin is a 22-year veteran of the House and, in 2003, chaired the Appropriations Committee. He has his name and fingerprints on the budget that cut over 150,000 children from the CHIP rolls, reneged on the state's promise to help pay for its teachers' health insurance, and gutted funding for a wide variety of other necessary programs.

The voters of his district showed their appreciation in 2004 by kicking him out in a race against political novice Hubert Vo. That's right: a 22-year incumbent in a Republican district lost to a first-time candidate in an election where George Bush's name was above his on the ballot.

The 2004 race was close -- the final margin was 33 votes. In 2006, Heflin called for a rematch against Vo, and this time lost by 10 percentage points. Ladies and gentlemen, the voters have spoken!

Since leaving office, Heflin flirted with (read: begged Perry to help him get) the job of director of the Texas Lottery Commission and then became a "visiting fellow at the Center for Fiscal Policy Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank." In other words, he needs the job.

Take a look at that picture. Is that a poster boy for what is wrong with the Republican Party in Texas, or what?

Hey, Craddick, Recognize THIS!

The Quorum Report providess a response from Speaker Craddick's office to reports that two House chairs are seeking a formal Attorney General opinion on whether the Speaker may be removed from office during the pendency of his term. I think Craddick's allies have already given up on the argument that he's a constitutional officer, and thus subject to removal only by impeachment.

What's left is the argument that, as Speaker, Craddick has absolute and non-appealable authority to recognize a member for a motion -- or not. Craddick and his supporters have endlessly repeated the excerpt from the rules to that effect, as Alexis DeLee does below in his statement:

June 18, 2007 4:09 PM
SPEAKERS OFFICE RESPONDS TO KEFFER/COOK REQUEST FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL OPINION
We reprint the response in full, below:
Alexis DeLee, press secretary for Speaker Tom Craddick, released the following statement in response to Reps. Keffer and Cook's announcement that they are seeking an Advisory Opinion from Attorney General Greg Abbot [sic]:
"Speaker Craddick welcomes a review by the Attorney General. During the closing days of the session, Speaker Craddick sought the opinions of constitutional law and rules experts, and the advice was instrumental in the Speaker’s decision to move forward with the business of the session.
"The rules of the Texas House of Representatives do not provide for a motion to conduct a Speaker's race in the midst of a session’s business. Furthermore, the rules are clear with regard to the Speaker’s power of recognition.*
"Speaker Craddick acted correctly under the House Rules, the Texas Constitution, and was consistent with traditions of parliamentary practice. But more importantly, the citizens of this state were well-served in that the important business of the legislature prevailed over the internal politics of a speaker’s race."
*House Rule 1, Section 9 reads, "Responses to parliamentary inquiries and decisions of recognition made by the chair may not be appealed." House Rule 5, Section 24 reads, "There shall be no appeal from the speaker’s recognition….[the speaker decides] if recognition is to be granted."
Copyright June 18, 2007 by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved.

They love to quote House Rule 5, Section 24 with its "no appeal from the speaker's recognition" language, but they always leave out the last part of that sentence. The complete sentence reads, "There shall be no appeal from the speaker’s recognition, but the speaker shall be governed by rules and usage in priority of entertaining motions from the floor." (Emphasis added for obvious reasons.)

Maybe Craddick's copy of the rules does not contain the complete sentence ...

Texas Monthly's Ten Best, Ten Worst, Etc.

Texas Monthly has published its biennial list of the Ten Best and Ten Worst Legislators. This is always their follow-up to the legislative session.

The publication of the lists is always an event in itself. The lists are rolled out at a well-attended press conference held in the lobby of the Omni Hotel. (WHY? The magazine's offices are in that building.)

Above, Texas Monthly political writers Paul Burka and Patti Kilday Hart announce the list to the assembled media types. Burka is the one with the tie. Below, Elise Hu of Austin's KVUE (ABC Channel 11), T.J. Shroat of In The Pink Texas, Mike Rosen of Austin's KTBC (Fox Channel 7), and Ross Ramsey of Texas Weekly, listen as intently as possible as the press conference moves into its second half hour. I don't know who the other guy is.

For a day or two afterwards, reporters craft stories about the lists (some even saying whether they agree or not), and Capitol staffers and other political types pore over the story to unearth clues to who's up and who's down.

In the end, the Texas Monthly list is just that: a list. There's an interesting debate whether being on the Ten Best or the Ten Worst affects a politician's career.

With that caveat, here are the lists:

Ten Best: Rafael Anchia, Sen. John Carona, Byron Cook, Sen. Bob Deuell, Scott Hochberg, Lois Kolkhorst, Jerry Madden, Sen. Steve Ogden, Sylvester Turner, Sen. Tommy Williams.
Ten Worst: Lon Burnam, Warren Chisum, Speaker Tom Craddick, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Sen. Troy Fraser, Charlie Howard, Sen. Eddie Lucio, Sen. Dan Patrick, Gov. Rick Perry, Debbie Riddle.
Honorable mention: Rob Eissler, Sen. Craig Eltife, Dan Gattis, Fred Hill, Sen. Juan Hinojosa, John Smithee, Burt Solomons, Mark Strama, Senfronia Thompson, Sen. John Whitmire, the Insurgents (Dunnam, Talton, et al.).
Dishonorable mention: Kino Flores, Pat Haggerty, Linda Harper-Brown, S.id Miller, Mike O'Day, Chente Quintanilla, Bill Zedler.
Furniture: Alma Allen, Roberto Alonzo, Wayne Christian, Sen. Craig Estes, Joe Farias, Jim Jackson, Sen. Mike Jackson, Nathan Macias, Armando Martinez.

UPDATE: If you want to hear Burka's and Hart's reasoning re their choices, KVUE has put up a video of most of the press conference here. Thanks to KVUE.

Tom Craddick on YouTube

Nice little video from Burnt Orange Report. Check it out.

Turner = Craddick's Stalking Horse

Paul Burka has an interesting post about the real motivation behind Sly Turner's race for Speaker. As Inigo Montoya says in The Princess Bride, "let me sum up:"

More likely, this is not a play for speaker at all. It is a play to protect the Craddick Ds from a primary challenge. Turner's candidacy gives the Craddick Ds the opportunity to pledge to a Democrat. This removes the main argument that can be used against the Craddick Ds in the primary. Then, safely reelected, they can deliver their votes to Craddick in January 09.

As a commenter suggested, Democratic primary voters should make their candidates pledge NOT to vote for Craddick.

How Does Sly Turner Get 76 Votes?

There's an argument to be made that Sly Turner could actually make a great Speaker. He's intelligent, articulate, and effective. As an African American, his ascension as Speaker of the Texas House would rewrite all the history books.

Whether he can ever be Speaker under these circumstances is another question entirely. What's his base? The Craddick Ds? OK, that's about 15 people, a half dozen of whom will be in the race of their lives next spring. The anti-Craddick Ds? Not likely, unless he convinces them that it's possible for a Democrat to be Speaker, but only if he's the candidate. The Craddick loyalists? He has to convince them of a slightly different proposition: that a Democrat is likely, even inevitable, to become Speaker and their best hope of power-sharing lies in a "moderate" like himself.

No one would have guessed, at this point in 2005, that the Republicans would lose six seats before the next session began. While it's too early to chart all the dynamics of the 2008 House elections, Democrats certainly have reason to hope they'll pick up more seats -- maybe even a majority (especially after Craddick's performance over the weekend, which will be replayed in countless campaign ads and YouTube excerpts over the next 18 months).

Will the next Speaker be a Republican or a Democrat, and how will Sly Turner fit into that calculus? It'll be interesting to watch.

Sylvester Turner to Run for Speaker

Several news organizations are about to report that Sylvester Turner has filed his paperwork to run for Speaker in 2009. More to come ...

UPDATE 1: Kristen Mack of the Houston Chronicle gets the story up at 12:30 p.m.:

May 30, 2007
Sylvester Turner files for Speaker
State Rep. Sylvester Turner makes it official. He officially defected from House Speaker Tom Craddick's camp when he filed his paper work today for the 2009 House Speaker's race. Here's part of his release:
"I don't ever want to have another legislative session like the one just completed where taking care of the people's business took a back seat to political agendas," Turner said. "We have too many problems in this state to waste most of a legislative session on political agendas that will not provide insurance to children with no health care, that will not provide lower electric rates to seniors and those with little income, that will not provide more funding for mental health programs."
"I have worked effectively in the House under a Democratic majority," Turner said, "and I have worked effectively in the House under a Republican majority. I have sought to treat every member with the utmost respect and I have worked to operate the House with the utmost degree of integrity.
"I sincerely hope that over the next 18 months, members will evaluate and assess my abilities," Turner continued. "I believe I am the best person to serve as Speaker in 2009 and I hope the members will give me the opportunity to serve as their Speaker."

UPDATE 2: Harvey Kronberg's Quorum Report gets the story up at 12:56 p.m.:
May 30, 2007 12:56 PM
SYLVESTER TURNER FILES TO RUN FOR SPEAKER IN 2009
Key Craddick supporter jumps ship
In his statetment, Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) said, "“I don’t ever want to have another legislative session like the one just completed where taking care of the people’s business took a back seat to political agendas. We have too many problems in this state to waste most of a legislative session on political agendas that do not include providing lower electric rates to the low-income and elderly or more funding for mental health programs."
“I have worked effectively in the House under a Democratic majority,” Turner said, “and I have worked effectively in the House under a Republican majority. I have sought to treat every member with the utmost respect and I have worked to operate the House with the utmost degree of integrity."
“I sincerely hope that over the next 18 months, members will evaluate and assess my abilities,” Turner continued. “I believe I am the best person to serve as Speaker in 2009 and I hope the members will give me the opportunity to serve as their Speaker.”
Check out Turner's complete statement

UPDATE 3: Burnt Orange Report gets the story up at 1:10 p.m. BOR's Matt Glazer has an interesting theory about why Turner, Craddick's Speaker Pro Tem and staunchest defender, is running:

Interestingly, Turner's early support for Craddick is a main reason Craddick remained Speaker. Some speculation is that Craddick sees the writing on the wall, and is not 100% sure Republicans can maintain control of the House.
This unease has caused Craddick to ask Turner to run so he can still have influence over the next Speaker. There are only 4 people that believe that the rule of the Speaker is absolute, Craddick, Turner, Keel, and Wilson. Makes sense that Craddick would want his legacy to continue.

UPDATE 4: Charles Kuffner at Off the Kuff also has the story.

Watching That Sausage Flow ...

The House is running through its calendar this afternoon, passing Senate bills at the rate of one a minute or so. I noticed that the chair keeps saying, "The question is on passage to engrossment of Senate Bill ____," and "The ayes have it. Senate Bill ___ is passed to engrossment."

ENGROSSMENT is the act of preparing a formal copy of a bill as passed, with amendments rolled in to the final form. If a bill passes one chamber and moves to the next, and is amended in that chamber so as to be different from the version that came over, then it is also engrossed in that chamber. In other words, H.B. 123 is engrossed in the House, goes over to the Senate, is amended, and then an engrossed version is prepared in the Senate. Eventually, those two versions are reconciled (or not) in a conference committee.

ENROLLMENT is the act of preparing the final copy of a bill, reflecting the content that passed in identical form in both chambers. At that point, the finalized (enrolled) copy is signed by the presiding officers of both chambers and sent to the Governor for his action.

Go here for definitions of engrossment and enrollment in the Texas legislative context. For a discussion of engrossment and enrollment in the (federal) Congressional context, see here.

So here's the question: if the version that passes the second chamber is identical to the one passing the first, has that bill "passed to enrollment?" In other words, if no changes have been made in the Senate to a House bill, isn't that bill "enrolled" when it passes the Senate?

I'd like to see the parliamentarians of the House and Senate address this one.

Do I know how to party, or what?

If It Was a Snake, It Would Have Bit Him

Governor Rick Perry today trotted out Heather Burcham, a 31-year old Houston woman dying of cervical cancer, to promote his plan to force-inject thousands of young Texas girls with Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine marketed by pharmaceutical giant and Perry patron Merck.

First, let me say this: Ms. Burcham's illness is a tragedy, and I am loathe to exploit it any more than Rick Perry already has. From a news story about her in the American-Statesman, I gather Ms. Burcham -- who taught in Mexico and was a pre-school teacher in Houston until sickness forced her to quit -- is probably someone I would like.

So here's the deal, according to Ross Ramsey's Texas Weekly (subscription required):

She said she went undiagnosed for four years by four different doctors who told her she had another, unrelated disease. By the time the physicians figured out what was going on, she had a stage four cancer than has spread into her lungs, one kidney and pancreas.
Burcham said doctors assumed she was too young to have cervical cancer and missed the cancer even after an operation. They didn't do a biopsy, thinking her age ruled out the cancer. They told her, she said, that she had endometriosis and needed a hysterectomy.

According to the Dallas Morning News:

Ms. Burcham ... believes doctors dropped the ball. They never talked to her about HPV – a disease she associated with promiscuity – and never considered someone her age might have it or cervical cancer.

The American-Statesman article adds that, "during one trip to an emergency room, she was told to seek psychiatric help." Ms. Burcham wants to spend the remainder of her life educating people about cervical cancer and how it can be prevented by, naturally, Gardasil.

The sad part is this: since Rick Perry is proposing the vaccine for 11-12 year-olds, Ms. Burcham is only, say, 20 years too late for the mandatory vaccine to do her any good. But the incompetence, obliqueness, and ineptitude of the various doctors that mistreated her have all occurred in the last four years -- since we "reformed" our medical malpractice laws in 2003 with the passage of H.B. 4 and Prop 12. Rick Perry could have done something about that, but he did not. In fact, he actively worked to immunize those doctors from responsibility for their actions.

According to Ramsey, the media at least fumbled with this contradiction, but got nowhere:

Burcham said she's not interested in suing any of the doctors, given the short time she has left. A spokesman for Perry — asked whether the state plans to investigate to see whether Burcham's doctors should be punished or have their licenses revoked, said they hadn't asked Burcham for the names of the physicians who misdiagnosed her.

Sadly, Heather Burcham will die, probably some time soon and certainly before her time. Even more sadly, Rick Perry probably believes in the Gardasil vaccine as sincerely as he believes in immunizing doctors who repeatedly misdiagnose and mistreat patients.

By the way, I am no expert on House Bill 4, but I think it has provisions in it that immunize drug manufacturers from liability for their product's labeling, directions, etc., if certain minimum FDA standards are met. In other words, if Gardasil turns out to be a fiasco on the order of Vioxx, Merck may still get a free ride.

Third Verse, Same As The First

Tom Craddick's re-election as Speaker yesterday was, personally, a disappointment. Certainly, I disagree with his overall political philosophy and agenda for Texas. But I dislike him more for what he's done to make the House of Representatives a weaker, more partisan, more feckless institution.

But it does not matter what I think. The election of the Speaker is a privilege and responsibility of the members of the House. From all accounts, some people acted with personal courage and at great political risk. Thanks to them for showing us what that looks like.

But Craddick is still Speaker for a combination of two reasons. Some people actually like the guy and how he's governing. They voted their conscience, which is all we can ask them to do. But, if the buzz out there is to be believed, lots of people voted for him because they were afraid -- of him, of being on the wrong side, of what might happen under a new Speaker. Whatever. They deserve what they get -- including, in some cases, opponents in the future and the opportunity to become private citizens. Just ask Todd Baxter or Martha Wong or Al Edwards.

Craddick has hinted that he'll be a kinder, gentler Speaker. We'll see.

Drama Thick as Molasses

It is the nature of the legislative process that, often, decisions of great import are made in verrrrrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwwwwwwww mooooooooooooootion. The House or Senate "stands at ease" while a couple legislators work out a deal in the backroom, or a couple more work out a way to un-do the last deal, or some staffers just make copies.

The House is in such a mode today. Not much appears to be happening on the floor, which is probably true. The real action may be happening on the sidelines, in the back rooms and hallways. Now they've started discussing HR 35, which lays out the rules for voting (signed ballots, secretly cast and placed in a lockbox). Getting interesting ...

80th Texas Legislature convenes

Well, today's the day. Opening day of the 80th Texas Legislature. There's a wonderful Latin term for the end of a session -- sine die, literally "without a day." The Legislature is adjourning that day without a day to meet again. It's pronounced "SEE-nay DEE-ay," but it's "SIGN-e DIE" in Austin. There's no comparable phrase for the beginning of a session. Too bad.

Lots of pomp, lots of circumstance. In both chambers, we'll begin with the swearing-in ceremonies -- new and returning members taking their oaths of office, loved ones standing by, cameras flashing. It's very sweet. Then, the Senate will adopt its caucus rules and select a President Pro Tem. The caucus rules are important because the Senate sets the monthly staff budgets for its offices. There's been some talk that the two-thirds rule might be modified somehow, but if that was serious we'd have heard a lot more about that. As for President Pro Tem, the competition's been fierce, but I am calling it for Mario Gallegos. You read it here first.

All eyes will focus on the House, where the Speaker's race concludes today. I expect it to last all afternoon. The first battle will be over the process by which the election is conducted. Will it be a secret ballot? Floor vote? Roll call vote? As is often the case, the decisions on which process to use will tell a lot about the eventual outcome. Then we'll have the nominations and seconds of Speaker candidates, and finally the vote itself.

Time Warner Cable will carry the House on Channel 6. The Senate will be on Channel 22. You can watch live feeds of both chambers on the Internetz. It'll be the best show in town.

Everything I Know About the Speaker's Race

It's gotten to the point in the Speaker's race where it's all down to the members. With 149 of them getting ready to vote tomorrow, I don't think even they know the outcome. Certainly, all the lobbyists, media wizards and other prognosticators are in the dark.

I worked for Rodney Ellis when he was, briefly, Lieutenant Governor following George Bush's election to the presidency and Rick Perry's installation as governor. The main event of Rodney's administration (MOTTO: "Seven days, seven hours and 32 minutes without a scandal") was the selection of a new Lieutenant Governor, who turned out to be Bill Ratliff. Like the current Speaker's race, there was enormous interest in the outcome. Also, there was lots of discussion of the process by which the new presiding officer would be selected. Like now, there was fear of retribution if senators ended up backing the wrong horse. In the end, the Senators decided to hold a secret ballot.

Like now, NO ONE knew what was really happening with the vote, and certainly not anyone in the lobby or the political class. I routinely had lobbyists come into the office with a theory of the day (and in the end, of the hour) about how Sibley was ahead or Brown was the consensus candidate or Ratliff had it all lined up. In the end, only the final vote itself mattered.

That's something to keep in mind as we nervously scan newspapers, blogs, and tea leaves for signs of the future.