Houston Democrats

I don't know if I've ever expressed this sentiment outloud in this space, but I think Governor Rick Perry is a real idiot. It's not like this is 1852--when Congress didn't hold legislative sessions until the second December following the November elections, and then only met for about eight months. Congressin' is a full time job in the 21st century and the people of the 22nd District, thanks to Republican petuousness, aren't going to have anybody to speak for them in Congress for more than six months. The next available special election date, for some idiotic legal reason, is November.

What could he possibly be thinking? Has he seen Mr DeLay's "internal numbers" that suggest an immindent Democratic win in the district? At first blush, that seems unlikely. The 22nd has got to have a voting base of close to 60% GOPers. Besides, Goodhair and Sludge Hammer aren't exactly bosom buddies, so them sharing exclusive polling data would be pretty much out of character. And one doesn't often see a Republican shying away from a fight, even when the president is hitting all-time lows in his approval rating.

"The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one."

And yet the governor is getting all pissy about filing deadlines for a replacement election, as if he's a school librarian rigidly enforcing an overdue fee for the campus's only Harriet Tubman biography. Let's look at the money quote again:

"If I don't get (DeLay's letter of resignation) by close of business tomorrow, the election will be in November."

If I were Nick Lampson, I'd start focus group testing a campaign theme of "culture of arrogance" to go along with the "culture of corruption" theme that everybody else is gonna be running on this year. At this point I've got to suspect that that may be behind Perry's decision to disenfranchise the three quarter of a million citizens of the 22nd in the same session when critical district issues (like immigration reform) are coming up for votes. You can also rest assured that no constituent services will be provided for the remainder of the year. That's a real spit in the eye to our state.

So now the 22nd will instead face the probably confusing situation in the November election of voting for candidates for both the regular two year congressional term and a special two-month term to fill out the following nine weeks that will be left in DeLay's uncompleted contract. Lampson will certainly be the only Democrat in the two elections. But there's a real possibility here that separate sets of Republicans will end up running in the district's two separate elections.

I'd be very surprised if Perry's little bookkeeper's snit depriving the 22nd of representation is purely a result of his slavish adherence to state election laws. Whether he was trying to force DeLay to quit early, or just trying to bluff local Republicans out of have a confusing array of candidates on the ballot, or (my pet theory) just being a dumbass, he's really not doing his main job: providing competent political services to the people of Texas.

Of course, to be fair, I really do think he's got great looking hair.

Adios.