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:

SAN ANTONIO, Tex.--U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) Thursday night declared that she would not have voted for the war in Iraq had she known there were no weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Responding to a question at a televised League of Women Voters' debate in Central Texas concerning whether she would have voted differently on the war in Iraq had she known that the nation had no weapons of mass destruction and no connection to al Queda, Hutchison said she would not have voted for the war.

Responding to a question at a televised League of Women Voters' debate in Central Texas concerning whether she would have voted differently on the war in Iraq had she known that the nation had no weapons of mass destruction and no connection to al Queda, Hutchison said she would not have voted for the war.

After all the speculation about who--if anyone--would step up and challenge Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) in the newly reconfigured Congressional District 28, voters in the district will have a choice between Cuellar and a self-styled 'true Democrat,' Frank Enriquez, a McAllen attorney.

Kay Bailey Hutchison has broken her promise to Texans. Not only did she promise to adhere to term limits herself, but she co-sponsored legislation to create a constitutional amendment mandating term limits for senators and congressmen not once, but at least twice!

She promised, back in 1993 that she would only serve two terms if elected to the United States Senate from Texas. When the Republicans nominated a presidential candidate from Texas in 2000, though, her Vice Presidential hopes were canned for at least eight years, which is why I suspect she's running for a third term. That, and the fact that she knew if she came home to take on Rick Perry in this year's election, she'd have been slaughtered by the far-right in her party.