Anyone Else See This As Messed Up?

[Lowbrow]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/m...politan/3054680

To the Republicans on City Council: Your party is keeping an eye on you

Local GOP upset they're supporting Democratic mayor

By RON NISSIMOV

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The Harris County Republican Party has a warning for Republicans on Houston's City Council: Be careful about supporting Mayor Bill White.

In recent weeks, as the popular Democratic mayor was taking flak over of his Safe Clear freeway towing ordinance, the local GOP saw two opportunities to humiliate him on the council.

Instead, White garnered enough Republican support to prevail on both issues, maintaining Safe Clear with modifications and spending up to $100,000 for an outside law firm to defend his Proposition 1 spending cap in court.

"There's a lot of disappointment that the mayor was able to get Republican council members to support him," said Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party.

The City Council is officially nonpartisan, but eight of its 14 members are Republicans. That's enough to defeat anything the mayor proposes, even with White casting the 15th vote.

"We're not looking for council members who are going to go along and get along," Woodfill said. "We're looking for council members who are going to stand up for conservative values."

On Jan. 19, the council voted 8-4 to hire the outside firm to defend Proposition 1 against a lawsuit filed by backers of Proposition 2, a more restrictive revenue cap White opposed. All the no votes came from Republicans, but three Republicans sided with White. One Republican and one Democrat were absent.

On Feb. 2, six Republicans joined all six Democrats in a 12-2 vote to amend White's Safe Clear ordinance rather than dismantle it. The two Republicans who voted against the ordinance also proposed to repeal it or place it under a moratorium, but the other Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting those measures.

Exact opposite stance

The executive committee of the Harris County Republican Party has voted overwhlemingly to support Proposition 2 and to repeal Safe Clear. The local party's Web site has links to council voting records maintained by the city.

Woodfill said the Harris County Republican Party has a good relationship with Republican council members and is not planning immediate action against them.

But he said the party is keeping a closer eye on them and may take more aggressive stances if they continue to vote for what he called liberal positions.

City Council members don't run as members of a party, but Woodfill said the GOP executive committee could influence their political aspirations through such measures as endorsing an opponent and putting out "score cards" on their votes.

"Our goal is to educate our constituents on how people vote and to hold people accountable," Woodfill said.

But two local political scientists said what really rankles the Republican Party is that White sometimes acts like a Republican, making him one of the few Democrats regarded as a rising political star in conservative Texas.

"Republicans have said they wanted a mayor who runs the government like a business, looks at the bottom line and is consumer-friendly,"said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein.

Stein said the Republican Party is worried because White has often been praised for being such a mayor

[Lowbrow]

I have absolutely no appreciation for this Jared Woodfill. How ignorant.

[Guest danax]

I have absolutely no appreciation for this Jared Woodfill. How ignorant.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Woodfill appears to be a whining weenie. I think it's great that those councilmembers voted for what they believed would help Houston at risk of "more aggressive action" from Mother Superior. If Woodfill thinks that a bad "report card" will hurt these council members next election, he could be in for a surprise.

[Sunstar]

The frightening part of this is that Woodfill doesn't really care about the substance of the issues. All that matters is that they were proposed by a Democrat (read Liberal) Mayor and must be defeated in order to humiliate him and make him vulnerable in the next election. It's pure partisanship. But then again, he is chairman of the Harris County Republican Party and is therefore mostly a strategist rather than a policy guy. One would expect this to be his approach. The good news is that city council works effectively as a non-partisan entity and that compromise is mostly sought.

[tw2ntyse7en]

...

[Dallasite]

I agree. I'm so tired of politics.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Me too. Has anyone followed the recent events in Dallas? Politicians are having problems all the way around.

[tw2ntyse7en]

...

[Dallasite]

There's been loose talk in certain threads - usually when comparing Dallas/FW to Houston. I don't think the details have be told though.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, the voters in Dallas will decide whether or not to change the city charter from a council-manager style of government to a mayor-council (strong mayor) form on May 7th. This has brought on fears of partisan politics, racial inequity, no balance of power, etc, etc.

Ironically enough, the proposed charter resembles Houston's charter about 99%!

Vote yes!