52 Democrats Walk Out of Senate -- Speaker orders Arrest

It's not an editorial. It's the facts, Jack.
Sorry if you don't like the news. The Statesman does an excellent job covering the Legislature. Read the Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio rag... if your not keeping up with this stuff, I'm sorry. And don't ask me for links... look it up yourself. This is what the Legislature did, like it or not.

I don't.

 

Deckard -- that's hardly objective journalism...here's why..

1. he starts with commentary...the very first sentence of the second paragraph is commentary...

2. there are 3 quotes in there about how bad this is...there is one sentence telling the other side of the story...here's how it goes: "Most lawmakers dismissed such talk as rhetoric."

3. the entire argument centers around the democrats' feelings on these issues or their statements...with a summary, "the republicans dismissed that" statement.


The above is NOT objective journalism. Even if you agree ENTIRELY with it!! There are all sorts of examples of conservatives doing the same thing. But using a front page article, intended as a merely relaying facts...and preparing it in such a way...peppering it with negative quotes...giving one sentence responses without quoting those on the other side of the fence of the argument...that's not objective journalism. Whether or not you agree with it is irrelevant. I don't know what side is right on this one...or if there is even a right side on it...but I know that this is anything but mere asssertion of fact for a newspaper article.

 

This is an editorial from today's Austin American-Statesman.


Calling special session for redistricting a waste of 1.7 million tax dollars
Editorial Board

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, June 6, 2003

There are reports that Gov. Rick Perry plans to call the Texas Legislature into special session at the end of June, primarily to redraw congressional district lines to elect more Republicans. The governor's office isn't saying for sure, but it's not ruling one out, either. It should.

A special session just to elect more Republicans to Congress is a waste of taxpayer money -- an estimated $1.7 million. No law requires it. No court requires it. The people aren't demanding it.

But U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay wants more Republicans in Congress, and that may be enough for our Republican governor. DeLay, from Sugar Land, is the Republican majority leader in the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives, and he needs more Republicans to bolster his majority.

Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, a Republican from Midland, tried to accommodate DeLay during the recent regular session. But that effort came late and was wretchedly handled. Fifty-one House Democrats stopped it by fleeing to Oklahoma, thus denying the House the quorum it needed to function. Craddick lost that fight and the House got back to business.

DeLay and others have complained that, although Texas clearly is a Republican state, its delegation to the U.S. House has 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. Redraw the lines "properly," the GOP figures, and it could elect as many as 20 of Texas' 32 House members.

The reason the GOP hasn't won more congressional seats is that voters in several otherwise Republican-leaning districts like their conservative Democrats, representatives such as Charles Stenholm of Abilene, Jim Turner of Crockett, Ralph Hall of Rockwall and Chet Edwards of Waco. Once they retire, or perhaps if the GOP puts up serious candidates against them, they almost certainly would be replaced by Republicans.

But DeLay can't wait on the voters to get it right, so Perry and the GOP majority in the Legislature are going to redraw the lines. The politicians will pick their voters, rather than the voters pick their politicians.

The current districts were drawn up by a panel of three judges after the Legislature failed to do the job in 2001. There's no need to redraw them until after the next Census, in 2010. And if the map generated by the DeLay allies in the regular session is any indication, there will be a court fight over whatever map lawmakers approve this summer. Austin and Travis County, for example, were divided into four congressional districts, one of which stretched to the Texas-Mexico border.

This all points to the need to enact a plan proposed by state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, to set up an independent commission to draw district lines. Judges might not be the best ones to draw such lines, but they're no worse than elected officials who have built-in conflicts of interests and purely partisan concerns.

If Perry does call a special session for congressional redistricting, he should at least get DeLay and the National Republican Committee to donate $1.7 million to the state treasury.

Copyright 2001-2003 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. All rights reserved. www.statesman.com




Needless to say, I agree with it.
This is an opinion, unlike my previous post, which merely stated the facts.

 

Just for the record, here's the AP story as it appeared in the Dallas Morning News in terms of the budget being passed. Notice the difference in balance and tone of the articles, even though the same "compassionate conservatism" quote is used in both articles and both list the things in the budget bill:

Legislature OKs final version of budget

$117.4 billion spending plan for 2004-05 heads to governor's desk

06/02/2003

Associated Press

AUSTIN – The Texas Senate and House passed the final version of the next state budget Sunday evening, completing the only bill lawmakers are required to pass.

The $117.4 billion spending plan now goes to Gov. Rick Perry, who has line-item veto power. The 2004-05 budget is set to take effect Sept. 1.

The 24-7 Senate vote and the 105-41 House vote came after hours of passionate debate about cuts to health care services, education and other areas budget writers used to cover a $9.9 billion shortfall.

"With this budget, we mark the passage in Texas from compassionate conservatism to just plain old mean-spiritedness," said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.

Most Republicans, who control the Capitol for the first time in more than 130 years, hailed the budget as historic because it reins in spending.

"I don't think that anyone can honestly say that in this budget we deny people the opportunity to help themselves," said Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. "This is a good budget."

Critics said thousands of needy Texans will go without health care and mental health services because of the spending decisions, but Mr. Ogden said the budget spends $1.1 billion more in those areas than Texas does now.

Despite the passage of the budget bill, several revenue-producing and cost-cutting bills needed to balance the spending plan were pending. The session ends Monday.

The chambers also signed off on an emergency appropriations bill that fills a $1.8 billion hole in the current budget, but not before Mr. Shapleigh and others complained about cuts to border medical schools and using part of the emergency "rainy day" fund for Gov. Rick Perry's project to lure businesses to Texas.

The 2004-05 budget proposes spending $58.2 billion in state general revenue, down nearly 10 percent from current spending. Federal and other funds make up the rest.

In the Senate, there was fear that state cuts would mean higher local taxes.

"It's passing the buck, and it's not fair," said Sen. Jeff Wentworth, the San Antonio Republican who voted no. He was among those who pushed an unsuccessful cigarette tax increase this session.

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, vice chairwoman of the Finance Committee, said the budget was the best lawmakers could do in tough times.

"This was the most excruciating experience I've had in my 16 years of the Senate. We did not have enough money," said Ms. Zaffirini, D-Laredo.

The proposal includes cuts to all areas of state government, including pared-down textbook funding, teachers' health insurance bonuses and the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP caseloads would be reduced by 122,000 in 2004 and 161,000 in 2005, according to the Health and Human Services Commission.

Food and administrative budgets were trimmed at state prisons, an estimated 10,000 state workers would be laid off, and several agencies would be consolidated or eliminated.

Public universities would be allowed to set their own tuition to make up for budget cuts. State lawmakers do now.

A separate bill needed to authorize the tuition provisions earned final passage in the House, 100-43. House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, cast a rare vote, in favor of the measure he pushed hard this session.

The Senate narrowly passed the bill, 17-14, late Sunday.

Although total spending will increase slightly over the next two years because of additional federal funds, state general revenue spending will fall by $2.6 billion.

State spending has shrunk for the first time since World War II, said Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, the Senate's chief budget writer.

He said the state's core needs were met, particularly public schools that got $1.2 billion in new money.

But Mr. Bivins acknowledged pain. "We're in rough, rough times," he said.

 

.....but was anything but balanced.

 

And that's your opinion. I disagree.
Why don't you read mrpaige's own post, purporting to somehow be less "biased" than the "Statesman" article I posted, and look at the facts...

The proposal includes cuts to all areas of state government, including pared-down textbook funding, teachers' health insurance bonuses and the Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP caseloads would be reduced by 122,000 in 2004 and 161,000 in 2005, according to the Health and Human Services Commission.

And...

Food and administrative budgets were trimmed at state prisons, an estimated 10,000 state workers would be laid off, and several agencies would be consolidated or eliminated.

Public universities would be allowed to set their own tuition to make up for budget cuts. State lawmakers do now.

See what you want to see and believe these facts are fine, if you wish, but many who are affected... from students facing higher tuition (and their parents), less textbook funding for public schools, reducing benefits for school teachers (and state employees, btw), laying off 10,000 state workers (who have had 3 pay raises since the '80's, btw), and fewer needy children covered by CHIP (the Children Health Insurance Program)... 161,000 by 2005.

Yes, it was all made up. So what you see as the "spin" is more important than the facts? Whatever floats your boat.

 

I think you're missing the argument. There's no denial of the facts. It's just the article as written in the Statesman was written in a way that was biased. It's the word choice in the non-quoted areas. It's the choices of whom to quote, and so on. If that was a column or editorial, there's no problem. But if that was presented as a news story, even if it is all true, it went over the line as it included opinion from the reporter in the story itself and didn't bother to balance the quotes of those who apparently agreed with the author with those who didn't agree.

That Statesman story is one that would be studied in Journalism Ethics classes as how not to write a story. It is one of the most obviously slanted stories I've ever seen. Even if all the facts stated within are true, the story is still unbalanced and biased. If it was a "news" story, that reporter needs to get a stern talking to.

That's the problem MadMax has. Not the facts that budget cuts have been made that will affect a good many Texans in a negative way. His problem, and mine, is how the story was presented. That Statesman article is not journalism.