Broken Promises, Broken Principles II
"I
actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." --John Kerry (2004)
Perhaps Betty
Brown and John Kerry attended the same school of politics. If it's offered as a seminar, it should be called
"How to do one thing while saying another." Betty Brown is keeping up her farcical "Promises Made.
Promises Kept." campaign and, in doing so, is playing cat-and-mouse with her constituents. A half-page ad paid
for by Betty's campaign came out in The Monitor's election guide on Sunday, Feb. 17, and if you want a mental
exercise to practice separating fact from fiction, it's a challenging read. If you expect Betty to avoid half-truths
and exaggeration of her importance at the Capitol, you will be sorely disappointed.
Betty alleges 4 points about
her record:
1. Stop Illegal Voting
2. Jessica's Law
3. Property Owners' Rights
4. Opposes State Income Tax
Some points are half-true; none tells the full story. Yet again, we must
go elsewhere for the whole truth on Betty's record. The following is a quick breakdown of each point she expects
us to accept at face value:
1. Stop Illegal Voting--Betty did indeed author a voter ID bill,
but it did not pass. She does not mention that she earlier voted to grant the children of illegal immigrants in-state
tuition for college. Betty has recently jumped on the bandwagon of opposing illegal voting, but she has yet
to rectify her vote to grant illegals lower tuition. Her record on illegal immigration is schizophrenic,
and she picks one issue to tout, while completely ignoring her complicity in the other.
2. Jessica's
Law. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst should get credit for Jessica's Law. He campaigned on it
in the last election and followed through with his promise to get the new law passed in the legislature. There
were 5 authors--Betty was not one of them. There were 23 co-authors--Betty didn't join them. She
was one of 119 representatives who voted for it. Hardly a leader on the issue.
3. Property
Owners' Rights. This one is downright misleading on two fronts. First, Betty's
ad says, "Voted to halt the Trans-Texas Corridor." She only voted to "halt" the corridor
after she voted to approve the corridor. A John Kerry protege. In 2007, she vote to postpone the
plan for two years, but in 2003 she voted for the plan, and in 2005 she failed to support HB 3363 which would have postponed
the corridor two years before she finally changed her position (HB 3363 did not come up for a vote, but Betty didn't sign
on as a co-author, nor did she lend her support to get it out of committee). She's taking credit for
the second half of a flip-flop on the issue. FLIP: Betty's for the Trans-Texas
Corridor. FLOP: Betty's against the Trans-Texas Corridor (maybe--she
has not actually said she is against it, she is only taking credit for postponing it). Remember: the Trans-Texas
Corridor has not been abolished; it has been temporarily suspended. Future legislatures will determine its ultimate
fate.
Second, Betty's claim to have kept her promise to protect property owners' rights was violated several
months ago when she voted for HB 2983 and HB 2984. The bills allow property owners in a fresh water supply district
to condemn property all throughout the state. For more information, click on "But it's OUR land!"
at the left of this page. In short, Betty's promises to protect our land have NOT been kept during her tenure
in office, and her newfound interest in trying to do so is lukewarm at best. Her rhetoric doesn't erase her record.
She is not the person you want in Austin fighting for your property rights, because she doesn't fight for them.
She lets them pass into other people's hands.
4. Opposes State Income Tax.
Betty's says she is "fighting to keep a personal state income tax out of Texas." This
isn't true either. A state income tax is unconstitutional in Texas. Article 8, Section 24 of the
Texas Constitution was approved by voters in 1993. Betty should be aware of it because she should have voted for it
before she was ever elected to the Legislature. For lawmakers to pass a state income tax, they have to put a constitutional
amendment before all voters in Texas and let the voters decide if they want to impose one. No legislator is leading
the charge on the issue, because it doesn't stand any chance of passing, and even if it did by some weird blip in the
universe, Texas voters would shoot it down. It's not Betty's choice to make; it's ours.
Betty knows a state income tax is unconstitutional, but she is using scare tactics to try to convince us to elect her to
do something that has already been done. There is no "fight" about a state income tax, as Betty would
have us believe. (There is a fight about property rights, but Betty has been on the wrong side of that issue
more times than not.)Texas has a Republican-led Senate, Republican-led House, and every statewide office is held by a Republican.
No one is launching a serious effort to put a state income tax before voters--no one. Saying so is like Don Quixote
battling windmills and thinking he's in a real war. However, Betty did vote for HB 3 in 2005, which the Young Conservatives
of Texas called a "virtual state income tax" and the Texas Public Policy Foundation called a "hidden income
tax" on small businesses.
And that's it--after ten years in office, that's what Betty
has to offer. Those are her promises made, not many of them kept--it's as good as she has been able to do.
Her advertisement goes on, but the rest no longer deals with phantom promises. She says she was first elected
in 1998 (true) and is serving her fifth term in office (true). She doesn't say she promised to leave after four
terms.
She lists her committee assignments. That's a rousing list of stuff that doesn't have much
bearing on us, but boy does she like reciting them.
And she repeats that "concern for her grandchildren
was one of the primary reasons [she] decided to run for State Representative" and that "she wants all the
children of Texas to have the opportunity to gain a quality education . . .." I have no doubt she is concerned
for her grandchildren, and I don't question that. As far as her record goes, she hasn't done much to give
any children the "opportunity to gain a quality education." Texas ranks 36th in the number of kids who graduate
from high school, 49th in verbal SAT scores, 46th in math SAT scores, and college tuition has increased 71% for kids who are
able to make it to higher education. I'm sorry--if that's the best she can do, it's not good enough.
It doesn't even rise to the level of mediocrity. Those statistics are failing grades, plain and simple.
She ends her ad with a platitude: "Betty also wants children to inherit a Texas where business is free from
unnecessary government interference and where those who are willing to work hard will have the opportunity to succeed."
So do I. The problem is that the chance of that future becoming a reality diminishes with every year Betty Brown
stays in office.