Houston Democrats

San Antonio Express News:

AUSTIN — San Antonio lawyer David Van Os ended a 24-hour-long speech here, the first of several he plans to make in his campaign for Texas attorney general out of a desire to focus voters on "corruption and cronyism" in their government.

Van Os, a Democrat and fiery orator, chose the state Capitol to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

"The purpose is to declare independence from cronyism, corruption, corporate government and Bushite tyranny, just like our forbearers did in 1836 when they declared independence from despots and tyranny," Van Os said during a break.

Scandals involving bribery and corruption in Congress, as well as lobbyists' heavy influence in Texas and campaign finance problems in the state, have grabbed people's attention, Van Os said.

"People want control back of their democracy and self-government," he said.

He said about 50 people gathered around him at 1 a.m. Saturday near the south steps of the Capitol.

"We had a lot of high-minded interaction and discourse about the meaning of the declaration of independence and the meaning of constitutional government and the powers in the Bill of Rights," Van Os said.

Corruption and greed are nothing new in government, Van Os said when asked about Democratic control of state government in past years.

"The political culture that encourages corruption and cronyism in our political process has been growing and getting increasingly worse for probably the last 30 years," he said. "People know that their ownership of their government is getting ripped off."

Link here.

Some photos from the Filibuster can be seen here. Dave Haigler, Taylor County chair and avid blogger, spoke at the Filibuster and posted here; he's got a good picture of David and Elliott Naishtat, who spoke on both Friday and Saturday.

Larry Stallings stayed through the entire Filibuster; his wife liveblogged it here, here, and here.

Democratic officials and candidates who appeared at the Filibuster included Rep. Naishtat, Stallings, Texas Railroad Commission candidate Dale Henry, CD-21 candidate John Courage, TX-20 candidate Jim Stauber, Texas Senate District 25 candidate Kathi Thomas, Michigan state Senator Buzz Thomas, former Court of Appeals candidate Winston Cochran, and many others.

Jack Blood of Austin radio fame made a midnight appearance with about twenty of his posse and livened things up nicely.

Thanks also to Karl-Thomas Mussleman of BOR and Tim McCann of the Chris Bell campaign for coming out.

More photos and a video gallery are up at the David Van Os Whistlestop blog.