Promoted from the diaries by Jerome.

In the eyes of most Democrats, there still isn't a credible candidate running for governor of Texas. Kinky Friedman, Mark Thompson, and George W. Bush intimate and former Ambassador Tom Schieffer simply don't cut the mustard in a state that brought more than two million Democrats out of the woodwork to vote in the 2008 presidential primary.

Texas Democrats need a credible, progressive, exciting, and qualified candidate to run for Texas governor in 2010.

Texas needs Ronnie Earle. That's why a small group of activists have started DraftRonnie.com.

Most national blog readers probably know Ronnie Earle best as the "DeLay Slayer." He is the only man who, as Travis County District Attorney, held Tom DeLay and his cronies accountable for his actions during the 2002 election cycle in Texas. Ronnie Earle, in fact, is the only one who has ever held Tom DeLay legally accountable for anything he's ever done, especially since federal authorities magically let the investigation of DeLay drop, although nearly everyone in Tom DeLay's debris path ended up doing time in federal prison--like Jack Abramoff.  

There is, however, much more to Ronnie Earle.

Fronted by Jerome.

As Democrats in the Texas House worked all weekend and through the early part of the week chubbing to death a voter identification bill that would disenfranchise millions of Texans and has rapidly become the civil rights battle of the decade in the state, one might wonder where the Lone Star State's two Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate stand on the controversial issue.

The reality is very illuminating.

Earlier this year, appearing before a Texans for Obama meetup in Austin, Houston Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Bill White was asked about voter identification. According to folks who were present, White didn't say he was for voter identification, but, basically gave a blase answer that he didn't think it would impede turnout beyond a small amount.

Some interesting happenings in my homestate. Promoted by Texas Nate

With former Texas Comptroller John Sharp's announcement today that he is in the race for the seat that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is expected to abandon as early as this June to pursue her run for governor, all eyes are turning to Texas and the prospects of Democrats  picking up another U.S. Senate seat between election cycles.

Since 2006, speculation has mounted that Hutchison would abandon her safe senate seat to take on Governor Rick Perry in the 2010 GOP Primary for Governor. Hutchison toyed with the idea of making a similar run in 2002 and 2006 and ultimately made neither race. This time, however, she seems to be making the race for real, having formally formed an exploratory committee and populated it with a  million dollars from her bloated campaign warchest.

John McCain's $520 Ferragamo shoes have been the buzz of the blogosphere this morning, but in Texas, a $520 pair of shoes for a lawmaker is nothing. After all, everything is bigger in Texas and one ethically-challenged State Representative, John Davis (R-Houston), recently spent a cool $1,537.15  on his foot ware.

Nobody in Texas can really begrudge anyone--especially a macho member of the Texas Legislature--a a nice of boots. But Davis didn't pay for his boots out of his own pocket. He paid for his boots with money he collected from lobbyists, political action committees, and right-wing donors who filled his campaign coffers.

That's right. Lobbyists and PACs for corporations like Reliant Energy, Dow Chemical, Accenture, British Petroleum, Cigna, Merck, and Phizer filled John Davis' campaign warchest to the brim and he used the cash to buy a $1,500 pair of boots. Houstonian Bob Perry of "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" fame is also a Davis campaign donor whose cash helped line Davis' coffers to help him afford boots that cost three times as much as John McCain's loafers.

The troubles at Texas' facilities for the mentally retarded were starting to bubble to the surface during the 80th session of the Texas Legislature. Now, thanks to this report from the Dallas Morning News, we have a full-blown scandal on our hands (yet again):

(Please feel free to distribute this to any Southern state bloggers you know!)

In the American South, in states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, and others, Democrats and Progressives face many of the same issues every election cycle. A lot of the typical "God, guns, and gays," plus abortion and other so-called "wedge issues," Republicans have made effective use of to turn the once Solid Democratic South into a Republican stronghold.

Bloggers in these states face unique challenges when it comes to framing issues and advocating for candidates in election cycles.

Recently, a new group has been started to help Southern State Bloggers "unite" and explore strategy and issue-framing options in anticipation of the 2008 election cycle: Progressvie Bloggers of the South.  

Texas Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick all knew about the acts of sexual violence being perpetrated on youthful offenders at the Texas Youth Commission as early as last fall.

But none bothered to act until this week.

I find it amusing that, though this was the lead paragraph of a Houston Chronicle story on Thursday, that the following fact seems to have been generally swept under the rug:

Gov. Rick Perry's staff learned last fall of a Texas Rangers investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in 2005 at a West Texas state juvenile facility, but the governor took no major action to reform the Texas Youth Commission until after the report became public last week.

As Kinky Friedman might say, "Why The Hell Not?"

What happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas, especially when it comes to air quality issues.

That's why officials from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality are planning to participate in administrative hearings relating to 11 858-megawatt coal power plants that TXU plans to build in East and Central Texas.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from coal power plant interests, fast-tracked the administrative permitting process for 16 TXU coal power plants in 2005. Though that action has now resulted in litigation challenging Perry's authority to issue the fast-tracking order, the administrative hearings process continues.

For those wondering why folks in Oklahoma might be concerned about new coal power plants in Texas, it has to do with the same issues Texans are concerned with: air quality. To wit: