Conservatives & the Texas Legislature

This realm our Elected Officials operate in. By George Scaggs Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas  In Texas this is the season of The Peoples Business getting done.  Though the Legislative Session is half way over the schedule has just kicked into full gear and plenty remains to be done. Now is the ideal time for conservatives to not only keep a watchful eye on their elected officials but to engage with them in the system".   No doubt Texas reps are facing some high hurdles this session. While the matters of re-districting and dealing with a $16 billion budget shortfall alone are daunting tasks with a GOP super-majority in the Texas House the 82^nd Legislature also has the chance to pass a groundbreaking conservative agenda. All in all this could prove to be an unprecedented legislative session. For conservatives it is time to strike while the iron is hot. Who knows if Republicans will ever have a two-thirds majority in the Texas House again? However lawmakers merely ramming bills through by sheer numbers wont cut it. In the long run winning legislative battles without winning the war of public opinion can prove to be a dangerous business. Conservative legislators need to persuasively make their case not only in legislative chambers but in public as well. Without the benefit of a compliant press they must work to create opportunities to promote and defend their positions. The challenge simply comes with the territory. On the grass-roots side while holding legislators accountable to do the work they were elected to do is paramount conservative activists and Tea Party groups should also seize opportunities to work in concert with legislators. For many there is a deep-seeded distrust of the political system" at-large. Inevitably there are times when even the most trusted and worthy of legislators is not strident enough to suit our conservative sensibilities. Though that skepticism is well-founded and healthy to some degree it should not serve as a deterrent to engage the legislative process. The nature of working within that process dictates dealing with a reality that most of us are not burdened with. Like it or not politics is a business of persuasion and compromise. This is the realm our elected officials operate in. By comparison most of us are relatively unencumbered; free to spout off among those who agree with us or engage our political opponents in faceless internet shouting matches. The common goals of conservatives elected officials and citizens alike will be best served when individuals advocacy organizations and effective legislators all work together in a coordinated fashion. Political victories go to those who show up. Political Enemies at the Gate Predictably necessary budget cuts alone are drawing the ire of Democrats liberal constituencies and mainstream press sources. Those forces will not slink off quietly into the night. They are at our states capitol every day; lobbying rallying holding press conferences and PR stunts. Liberal legislators and activists are adept at feeding a narrative to press sources that will inherently spin that skewered perspective into reality". Hang around the Texas Capitol for about a week and it is more than apparent that Left-wing activists groups primarily unions are well honed at organizing and mobilizing their ground troops. They need to be countered on all fronts. We can start by dispelling the rhetoric that Texas Republicans seek to punish segments of our population that they are somehow intent on stripping citizens of basic services and so on.

Though some fellow Texans seem to believe otherwise in truth the sky will not fall with less government spending. Conservatives know better.

Necessity is the mother of all invention. If government must do with less then the challenge is to create a government that works more effectively on behalf of the people it serves. In essence Texas has an opportunity to create not just a leaner but a more efficient public-sector. Holding Off the Feds Beyond the necessary state issues to be addressed there is another responsibility that conservative state officials must bear one that is growing increasingly ominous. The people of Texas must depend on their state government to defend them from ever increasing federal encroachments. These are challenging times for our nation. The prosperity of all Americans Texans included is being seriously jeopardized by a federal government that has run-amok. We simply cannot afford all of the borrowed money the federal government is spending. It is strangling us economically. Federal policy is devaluing our currency driving up the costs of basic goods and services and indebting citizens to much higher rates of taxation in the future. But fiscal peril is only the beginning of the trouble Washington is creating. On one hand the feds are failing to do the job in areas such as border security putting undue stress on states. On the other they are intruding beyond their authority threatening the well-being of Texans and the sovereignty of our state with everything from Obamacare to onerous EPA regulations to an overzealous Interior Department shutting down oil and gas production in the Gulf. Consequently a long overdue shift is afoot and states are increasingly seeking to establish a proper balance of power between themselves and Washington. Citizens are growing more and more frustrated with a federal system that ignores local and regional distinctions. It is incumbent upon state leaders to push back against federal intrusions that adversely affect Texans. Ultimately state government and conservative citizens will find themselves dependent upon one another to change the current lopsided equation.