Time Rewind: A Look Back at My First Year With Texas GOP Vote

We're gonna party like it's 1999...Wait, not really.  As radio stations and music video shows do year end countdowns, I thought I would do a play on a countdown, sort of a look back, at my time as a blogger at Texas GOP Vote.  It's a fun look back at what I've done and which posts got the most attention and which ones, although they may have been my favorites, did not get quite as much attention as I thought they would.

I'll mix it up and start off with some of the not so popularly viewed ones beginning with my personal blog, "Politics and Motherhood: Making It All Work" which was a post about my decision not to run for a party elected position.  It wasn't an easy decision, but as I said in that one particular blog, "Politics will always be there, however, the youth of my family will not."  It only had about twenty page views total.

My very first blog for Texas GOP Vote was titled, "Everything's Bigger In Texas-Including Government" and that had 300 page views.  If you don't remember what that was about, I wrote it about the medical directives and end of life care and the changes that the state was trying to make to laws regulation patient choices when it came to care of their loved ones.  Some argued the new bill would make things better, but I disagreed, and still do.  Thankfully, the bill didn't make it out of committee, so nothing to worry about.  Until the upcoming session starts, that is.

Think back again to the 83rd legislative session, the sweeping pro-life bill that got held off until the very end and caused quite the stir at the capitol building in Austin.  Yep, SB 5 as it was referred to then, was something that I wrote about and that article had almost 1900 page views!  If I remember correctly, after "Will SB5 Have a Fairy Tale Ending" was published, the article made it to the top of Google news.  Needless to say, I was stoked!

Fast forward a bit to the special session that was called as a result of the failure to pass the pro life bill I referred to in the paragraph above, I wrote yet another article titled, "While Texas Senate Talks About Abortion Bill (HB2), Let's Talk About Sex "  Yeah, I did.  I wrote about how abstaining from sex takes abortion out of the equation.  Save yourself for marriage and no need to worry about perceived overreach of the government.  Heh.  That one got over 5200 views and nearly broke the server at Texas GOP Vote.  That was a home run blog that only took thirty minutes to write.  Hey, when you're hot, you're hot!

 If you haven't already figured out that I'm an advocate for citizens to get involved in their local government, then you haven't been reading my stuff!  To back up that claim, my article titled "March 2014 Texas Primary: Why Local Elections Matter" got almost 1300 page views!  Surprised me a little that so many people were interested in that same topic.  Glad I was able to write it and share!


A few more blogs I'd like to highlight that are recent additions to my repertoire are all about Common Core and the Glenn Beck event.  I was fortunate enough to be chosen, along with four other bloggers, to be present during the Make Common Core History Event put together jointly by Glenn Beck and FreedomWorks.  I did some preparatory work for myself and my readers before the event and the article titled, "Common Core FAQ's: Your Questions Answered" had over 1900 page views. Sweet!

I've had some more additions since I got the stats from Texas GOP Vote, mostly centered around the Texas House Speakers Race; Scott Turner vs. Joe Straus.  I am firmly on Team Turner, and win or lose, I'm proud to say that Ive been a part of their team and all of the hard work we've done together.  My first article titled, "Turner vs. Straus: Who Will Emerge Victorious?" had almost 250 page views, followed by "Is It Murphy's Law To Support Joe Straus" had almost 200 page views.

My work here within the conservative political movement is far from over, however.  This is my first year and a half with Texas GOP Vote and I didn't share all of my blogs.  Thanks to all of you out there who have read and shared and 'liked' my articles.  Thanks to those who have even disagreed with me and shared their views. No such thing as bad publicity, right?   Head on over to www.texasgopvote.com/users/kelly-horsley and check out the rest of my work.  Hope you like!

The Texas House-Representing Voters or Subsidized Developers?

Last night at The MET Youth Building, State Representative Allen Fletcher faced a crowd of over 500 concerned, and might I add, a tad angry constituency.  The source of their anger?  Two projected low-income housing units to be built in the Cypress area; one at Queenston and W. Little York called the Catalon, the other to the north of 290 near the Ravensway subdivision, named The Lodge of Huffmeister.

On hand to kick things off was James Hardin, president of The Cypress Coaltion.  He and his wife, Barbara Hardin have started this group in order to fight the possible build of these two facilities.  James had this to say about the reason they decided to start this group, "We had heard about the low income housing on Channel 13, and we recognized the need to do something about this situation.  We signed the Change.org petition and decided we needed to go one step further and chose to do a townhall.  We set up the meeting and never in our wildest dreams did we think that there would be 500 people in attendance.  We then started thinking that we should have a coalition like Cy-Fair and we are in the process of setting up The Cypress Coalition in order to be proactive instead of reactive for future developments in and around our community."  Kay Smith, president of Texas Tea Party Republican Women was also there to help introduce the concept of the housing and information on how concerned citizens can put a stop to these projects going forward.

Nathan Kelly with Blazer Development was also on hand to debunk any and all misinformation that the public may have had about said projects.  Although, by the end of the meeting, I think he had been debunked.  When you boil it down, all he had were talking points and they were delivered as such.  Representative Fletcher took his share of the 'heat' as well.  There was a line at the microphone to share and express concerns from the group.  One of the most popular questions was, "Why weren't we informed of this?"

The concerns that were brought to the floor were all pretty similar, mostly about property value and the potential for the crime rate to go up after said housing is built and filled with subsidized residents, not to mention the potential strain placed on already overcrowded schools and a short staffed police force.  Some residents wanted to know why they hadn't been informed of this.  Good question.  So, Representative Fletcher responded in his defense, that he really felt he had done due diligence on his part by having met with the developer and had checked into it and he said he saw no problem signing on to having these projects built.  Once he heard that his constituency was upset with his decision, he said he would recant his decision to support it.  There were various responses to this, but I think my favorite was a lady named Lynn, a resident of Enchanted Valley.  She had this to say directly to Representative Fletcher, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Shame on you!  Think about all the money you raised to get reelected!  You should have used that money to send out information to the residents to let them know.  Shame on me for voting for you!"  Good point.

Here's the frustrating part, besides all that has already been mentioned: the developer doesn't really care about your individual concerns and your property values.  That's why this is done on a points system run by a large state agency called TDHCA.  They approve low-income/affordable housing projects based on a complex system of points.  Sadly, in the last legislative session, the state senate decided to do away with their “voting/veto” points on such matters, leaving them no sway or say in these project developments and now the House of Representatives of the State of Texas has eight points, which is enough to kill a project, if the representative should choose to write a letter of disapproval.  There are points held by the following entities, so if you care about this, these are some of the important people to contact:

-School District
-MUD 61 JF-Hofman
281-469-9405
JFHofman@District61.org
-Fire Department
-Ems
-Law Enforcement
-Local Businesses
-Elected Officials
The only other quantifiable community participation is with a coalition, which, thanks to James and Barbara Hardin, Cy-Fair has now.

Call Representative Fletcher at 281-373-5454.  Call the developer Chris Richardson at 713-914-9200 or email him at Blazer1@blazerbuilding.com.  Also, a matter of public record is the owners of the property, Edgar and Janis Lester and if you feel so inclined, you may call them at 713-629-2300 or email at ED.Lester@Stewart.com.  This is far from over, so if you are concerned and want to get involved, this is your chance!

Priorities: Republicans Haz 'Em

Think about the things that Texas is known for.  Oil, trucks, cowboys, cows and big city life.  Also, a gun loving governor and a booming economy.  Oh, yeah and the myth that everything is bigger in Texas, right?  We've got big trucks, big hair and...big government?  Big government, you say?  Sadly, yes.

Back in 1999, the Texas Legislature signed a bill into law that granted a panel of doctors, appointed by the hospital in which they work, to help with end of life directives.  What does that mean, exactly?  Well, if you wanted to go all Sarah Palin, then, I guess you could call these death panels.

As we all know, the 83rd legislative session of the Texas house is coming to a close.  This year proved to be a fairly quiet one, until now.  The current legislative body has apparently being working on drafting what they would have you believe is an improvement to the law already in place.  My state representative, Bill Callegari happens to be one of the co-authors and he is down right proud of his work on this bill, according to his staffer, Steven, Representative Callegari feels it would be 'morally wrong' not to pass this bill.  They are selling this as an upgrade, if you will.  SB 303 and
HB 303 are up for consideration, and from my own personal research, along with others, this bill is just as bad.  Hey, don't take my word for it, take a look for yourself.  Texas Right to Life is an organization that believes that this bill should not be passed in it's current form.  You can even read their own pro-life stance here. I would tend to agree with their philosophy on life.  Life is sacred.  It's so sacred that it's enumerated in our Declaration of Independence, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Also for your viewing pleasure, I have a side-by-side comparison of the current law and the proposed bill and Texas Right to Life's stand on the bill.

There are other groups here in Texas that have raised some legitimate concerns about the passage of this bill and Texas Home School Coalition is one of them.  You can read their own blog about this bill here.  This bill could also prove to hinder the rights of parents to decide their own child's fate when end of life decisions need to be made.  That's a sobering thought.

I called Representative Callegari's office and I started off the conversation with a question that seemed simple enough to answer.  I asked him that since Representative Callegari is a Republican representative, what does he see the role of government in every day citizens lives.  He tried to roll me with an actual story that he thought would sell me on the idea of this bill needing to be passed.  I thanked him for the information, but wondered if he would answer my original question.  He couldn't.  His answer was that Rep. Callegari doesn't feel that this bill creates death panels. 

I also called a few other representatives and they relayed that they had met with and interviewed a number of doctors and talked to groups like Texas Alliance for Life and after that, they were more comfortable with the bill.  My question is, what about the constituents?  Where do they factor in?  They are the folks who got you elected, are they not?  The answer that the staffer seemed hung up on was that Representative Callegari felt that it would be morally wrong not to pass this bill. 

I also asked where this bill had originated; why it was authored in the first place, and he assured me it was his own constituents.  Well, I'd like to meet some of those liberty lovin' folks!  #sarcasm, people!  He also assured me upon my questioning that Rep. Callegari isn't beholden to any lobbyist groups because he doesn't need their money to win elections. 

One of the other things that concerns me is that Steven told me that these 'end of life' situations usually only crop up two times a year.  Yeah, TWO times a year!  So, let's knee jerk legislate this problem away, shall we?

This is why it's so important to stay active and vigilant when it comes to government on all levels, whether it be local school boards and mud districts, our state government, or all the way to the nations capitol.  It's called tyranny 'creep' for a reason, ya'll.

Believe it or not, I have yet to hear from Representative Callegari himself.  Hey, I'm still waiting....

*This article was originally published on the Texas GOP Vote website and you can view it here.