Posted by mair on May 16, 2003, at 22:43:55
In reply to Re: more replies » mair, posted by lil' jimi on May 16, 2003, at 15:39:44
Jim
Thanks for the Texas civics lesson. I guess i had read about the redistricting controversy - I didn't realize that Mr. Delay was behind it.
It's always boggled my mind how politicians of both stripes can spend so much time on relatively unimportant matters to the exclusion of far more crucial things. My state has been trying to deal with some awful school funding problems for the last couple of years and yet the republican controlled house ate up most of last year's session trying to do away with a law that recognized gay "marriages" (civil unions). By the time they realized they weren't going to be successful, there was no time left to deal with any substantive money issues. I think the only reason they didn't try the same thing this year was that we elected a Republican Governor in the interim who said he wouldn't support any efforts to overturn the civil union legislation.
I've never been in your part of the world - I suspect that if I went there, I might feel like I was in a foreign country, Austin excepted perhaps. The politics in your state have always sounded wild too. I just have a tough time dealing with the glee with which Texas seems to mete out its death penalty and the mentality of judges who see nothing all that harmful about a death penalty handed down in a case where the defendant's attorney fell asleep during critical stages of the trial. It's not that the rest of the states are all that much more enlightened - they just maybe do a better job of keeping their injustices out of the limelight.
Thanks again for indulging my curiosity.
Mair
PS: Whatever happened to the concept of checks and balances?
poster:mair
thread:226565
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030506/msgs/227150.html