Spotlight on HD 132 Runoff: Interview With Ann Hodge Part 2

As you know, Republican State Representative Bill Callegari resigned his seat at the close of the last legislative session; you know the one with a record three special sessions?  That left the opportunity for, well, anybody and everybody to throw their name into the ring to take his place.  Four candidates emerged and after the primary held in March, we are down to two.  The runoff election is around the corner and the two candidates facing off are Michael Schofield and Ann Hodge.  Hey, HD 132, we have two fantastic candidates and we have a choice to make.  As a resident of Texas House District 132 and an activist for my community, I want an informed electorate to be able to make the best choice possible; sue me.  I was very appreciative that Ann Hodge, candidate for HD 132 took time out of her day to answer my questions.  I have already shared with you the first half of our interview, and now, I'm proud to share with you the long awaited sequel.  Here goes!


KH: What piece of legislation did you want to see passed last session that failed?
AH: I wanted to see more on HB 5.  I am very concerned about end of semester testing.  I have had the pleasure of working with HCC and Katy ISD and I do not understand the disconnect.  We are testing at a certain level, but yet I continue to be told when they reach college or the community college level or the university, a lot of our students are in remedial classes.  How can you be in a remedial class?  I'm seeing employees that can't spell.  I really am struggling with what we are  testing and teaching to the test.  I am a huge proponent of accountability, but I'm not sure we are measuring it the right way.

KH: What would you like to see brought back?  Would you like to see HB 5 brought back?
AH:  It's interesting, at the candidate forum the other night, at the school board candidate forum, they were all like, our wish is the legislature will leave alone what they've already done and not touch anything.  I mean, really?  There's not some things you would have tweaked a little?  The other thing is, I haven't had the chance to run the analysis yet, but I did log onto HCAD and I was pretty shocked to see the dramatic increase in my husband's and my home.  What I'm looking at is it seems to me like  that we've got a pretty big windfall coming in Harris County and our respective school districts.  Now, I have not seen what that looks like for Ft. Bend and Waller County, which is part of Katy ISD, but I would really like to entertain some dialogue as to how we are going to be using that increase in the tax rolls that we are going to see from the appraised value versus the market value.  I recognize that there's a cap, but it still is a pretty significant amount if our little piece of the world is indicative.  I'm told right now that homes are staying on MLS for eight days in this corridor and they're going for full ask, if not with a kicker from the realtors that I'm working with on a daily basis, so I've got to believe some of that appraisal is pretty close to being accurate.  That's some significant money and we're not talking about it.  I'm the one bringing it up going, um guys, what's going to happen?

The other piece that I"m troubled by is I serve on two hospital boards and I'm not convinced that we've made any progress with the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  As a result, I've asked both administrators of the two hospitals, have you seen a decrease in the load of indigent and uninsured that we are serving walking through the doors.  No, quite the opposite, we've seen an increase.  Yet, you and I pay Harris County Hospital taxes and I would really like to have a dialog about that line item on our property tax that we are paying.  I understand how Zerwas' bill for a waiver on the Medicaid went down in the last session, but if there is a way that we can find to draw down some of the dollars from the federal government without increasing our tax burden, I'm all for trying to get that from Washington, D.C.  Now what form that looks like; I was told there were opportunities for block grants and waivers without any increases but drawing back some of those dollars, which takes the burden off of those of us that own property, then I'd like to have that discussion.  I'd like to have it, hopefully, without all the rhetoric, I mean, you know that it has to be draped in party lines.  I mean, why aren't we fighting for everything we can get back from Washington, D.C.?  I want our share.

KH: What legislation would you most like to see repealed?
AH:  I think we need to look at every agency and what their function is and I'm convinced that there is duplication of effort.  I'm also disturbed because I keep hearing from professional organizations who have licensing or regulatory fees that they pay, that those dollars are not going to support that agency that is to oversee that profession; they are being diverted.  I think that we need to just say that is an indirect tax and be honest about some of this.  I think that's where government loses the respect of citizens as well as business owners because what they see is that they are basically speaking out of both sides of their mouth.  If I had to tell you something that I would repeal, sitting here today, I don't know if I could tell you one thing I would repeal as much as I would really like to tear apart the structures and take a hard look at what each of the agencies is responsible for, what their income sources are and are they delivering the services or is it really just a front for revenue for the state of Texas, in which case, let's be honest about it.  I mean, if you look at where our fuel taxes are going and so forth.  If you look at what happened with the Lottery, I would just say we have really been mislead on a number of things that I find unfortunate.  It's that behavior, and you know as a business owner, you're not going to succeed.

In closing, Ann had this to say about serving the community as a state representative and being a member of the community: "I think that constituent services; lets face it, your there day in and day out.  You're only up in Austin for six months every two years and it's what you do in the district that really counts and that's where the model of the chamber pays huge dividends, in my opinion; that customer service is essential.  I would just suggest that customer service, as you well know, that's job one and it will be job one for me."

*Don't miss tonight's candidate forum!*

What: Katy Libertea is hosting with Bob Price moderating 

When: May 8th 

Time: 6:30 PM

Where: 1773 Westborough Drive, Katy 77449 

Congressman John Culberson Hosts Town Hall Meeting: We've Got to Stick Together!

Last night, Republican Congressman John Culberson of CD-7 hosted a town hall meeting for his constituents at Cy-Falls High School.  The crowd was sparse, about fifty or so in attendance.  The mood was relaxed, no crazy video taped confrontations or rude constituents, just concerned citizens waiting for an update from the Congressman.

I was surprised anybody made it out because as we all know, Senator Ted Cruz was in the throes of a filibuster to try and defund Obamacare in the Senate.  As you can imagine the topic of conversation was laser focused on Obamacare.  There were other concerns raised, such as the NSA spying scandal, in which Congressman Culberson denounced Edward Snowden as a traitor.  The Congressman also said that he wouldn't vote to repeal the Patriot Act, which was in large part the reason the government was allowed to spy upon innocent American citizens, although he'll tell you that wasn't the intention of the Patriot Act.

He stated he was in full support of defunding Obamacare and supported the most recent continuing resolution that came out of the House last week, the one that funded the government, but not Obamacare.  He was also fully supportive of what Senator Cruz was doing and even shared a personal text message exchange he and the Senator had. 

Speaking personally here for just a minute, the most frustrating thing to me about Obamacare, besides the fact that it is slowly killing jobs and the economy, is that we have no idea what is going to happen.  The bill is so awful, and the fact that we have unelected bureaucrats surrounding the future of our healthcare, is a recipe for disaster.

The Congressman did get a question from the audience, "What happens when Harry Reid strips out the defunding language from the House bill?"  Culberson's reply: "We'll send it right back."  Okay, Congressman, I'll hold you to that.

If you noticed the title, "We've got to stick together!"  That seemed to be the theme of the evening, an audience member even brought up was the 11th Amendment coined by President Reagan, "Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican."  Not in public, anyway.  I see a lot of that done publicly when we are dealing with John McCain calling out Senator Cruz for being a so called 'whacko bird'.  We've almost come to expect that from McCain and his ilk.  Yes, he has an ilk, and I think it's safe to say that Harry Reid is part of it, especially after their theatrics at the end of Senator Cruz's filibuster.

On the surface, it seems that Congressman Culberson is 'with' Senator Cruz, and he might just be.  However, there was no talk last night of Congress being exempted by Obama from being forced into the Obamacare exchanges.  In a phone call I had with the Congressman, he assured me that Congress and its staff was NOT exempt, but I have found information that proves otherwise.  This link written by Loren Heal at Freedomworks says, "Congress has allowed itself to be exempted from this aspect of Obamacare. While the only insurance the federal government can offer its congressional employees must be in plans that are offered through exchanges, members of Congress and their staffs now have a benefit that the rest of America, by law, cannot have: their employer picks up the tab.  We should as citizen Dave Farrington said, "All have equal protection under the law."  So all of that talk of 'sticking together' just kind of fell flat, if you ask me.

A Tale of Two Senators

Look, I know you are all probably sick of hearing about voting records and continuing resolutions and funding this or that.  Deal with it.  It's going to get worse.

So, I wrote a little blog, titled Versions of the Truth, in which I document the tale of two stories, one in which it was reported that Congressman Culberson had in fact voted to fund Obamacare, and the other, in which he had not.  Guess who told the version that he had not voted to fund Obamacare?  If you guessed his office, you guessed correctly.

Fast forward about a week or so.  The same CR came up for a vote in the Senate.  Now, mind you, the line item for the Health and Human Services is listed in the summary of the bill and the story I got from Culberson's office was that therein was the confusion.  The line item only funded WIC and not Obamacare.  Via Redstate.com, I read that Senator Cornyn had voted FOR the continuing resolution and that Senator Cruz voted AGAINST the continuing resolution.  Wow.

So, I thought a call to Cornyn's office was in order to find out what really happened.  According to Claire, Senator Cornyn does oppose Obamacare.  He just didn't want to see a government shut down, and I told her I thought it might be a good thing to have a shut down.  She didn't agree.  It gets more interesting than that, because unbeknownst to me, Big Jolly was writing a blog the same time I was, he just got his out first.  Ha!  According to Big Jolly aka David Jennings and a press release from Senator Cornyn's office, Cornyn was able to accomplish the following:

• The Continuing Resolution denies President Obama the nearly $1 billion dollars in additional funding he requested for implementing the health insurance exchanges;
• It lowers spending levels, something that has not been done in years; and
• Keeps the sequester cuts in place

Now, I'm becoming more of a skeptic these days and I don't always believe what I'm told.  When it refers to spending cuts, I'll borrow a question from one of my good friends Felicia Cravens and ask, "What government agency is getting less funding this year than last?" I am also not sure where he saw the information about denying the President the $1 billion in additional funding. 

Not being well-versed in policy and how it's written coupled with being a skeptic I decided I wanted to compare notes with Senator Cruz's office.  I called Senator Cruz's office to find out why he didn't vote for the resolution.  Guys, I gotta tell ya, you could have knocked me over with a feather when these words came across my phone and I'm paraphrasing, of course: "Because it had Obamacare funding in it.  The Senator voted on principle.  He came to Washington to represent the will of the people of Texas and he's not going to vote to spend money on Obamacare."  Wow.

The staffer whose name I failed to get, then went on to say that Senator Cruz is not afraid of a government shut down.  That if the government did shut down, it was only the non-essentials that wouldn't get funded.  He also recalled the result of the government shut down of 1995; say it with me, a BALANCED BUDGET!  He went on to say that what's going to cause a shut down is if we keep spending money the way we are because we are borrowing $.40 on every dollar.  Wow.

So who are you going to believe?  I'd put my money on Cruz every time.

But wait, there's more.  Oh, yes, just this morning, I received a post on my Facebook wall about this very vote that still has folks disputing via Redstate, so of course I felt the need to finish up this blog and share my knowledge.  Erick Erickson stands by his original story, that yes, John Cornyn did in fact vote to fund Obamacare, and now by saying he didn't, he's simply lying.  All we want as constituents is the truth.  Is that too much to ask?