Giovanni Capriglione: The End of a Career

"Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?” And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver."
Matthew 26:14-15

It's Tarrant County, the commercials write themselves:



To be honest, this isn't a surprise.  We first heard he was leaning this way in August.  Still, the depth of the sellout becomes apparent when you read his op-ed from Saturday:

Transportation financing will be one of the items at the top of the agenda.

Really, transportation funding as the #1 issue?!?  Nobody opposes adding highway capacity, we object to the fact that you come back and ask us for more money after you've already increased spending by 26%.  But yah, "transportation"....

Read

The op-ed gets better, check out this drivel section on education:

One major item that did not receive its fair share of the campaign attention was public education. This is even more remarkable considering that Judge John Dietz released his long-awaited decision on public education finance just two months before Election Day.

This is an issue where Republican officials can and should lead. Improving the quality of education is not a partisan issue, but by remaining relatively silent the ruling Republican party allowed Democrats to gain crossover votes.

I see an incredible opportunity for us to make positive education finance reforms in next year’s session — before being forced to do so by the courts.

Three paragraphs about "public education" and "education finance reforms" without mentioning school choice?!?  Duly noted.

We could almost forgive the Straus thing, but the op-ed makes clear he now endorses all of the Lobby's legislative priorities.

Agendawise has a good summary of what this means:

He seems to believe, as cynical insider thinking teaches, that by next primary voters won’t remember betrayals done at this point in the political calendar. In fact, the speaker may now even put him in front of one of next session’s unavoidable conservative outcomes in order to show his supporters how much he “gets done” now that he’s in with Straus.

Outcomes like these are always the result of conservative outsiders altering the political terrain in Texas. Nevertheless, insiders funnel the credit, as best they can, to their own people to keep as much control over the landscape as possible.

But a vote for Straus is not just an endorsement of a corrupt politician, it’s an endorsement of the ruling class kabuki theater that would leave voters naked and unarmed against their aggressors in Austin. This theater always includes things like low expectations, coordinated celebration of moderate results as conservative, a tough fight on a big conservative issue that is just barely lost but is set up so everyone can point the finger at someone else, no discussion of the many, many real conservative bills and issues that never see the light of day because the speaker didn’t want them to, and much else besides.

We concur with North Texas Tea Party:

Let’s make this simple for the members of the Texas House:

ANY STATE REPRESENTATIVE WHO VOTES FOR JOE STRAUS AGAINST SCOTT TURNER WILL BE PRECLUDED FROM GAINING NTTP TEAAPPROVAL. ANYONE WHO VOTES TO NOT HAVE ANY OPEN RECORDED VOTE ON THIS ISSUE WILL ALSO BE PRECLUDED.

Various people claim we do not ‘understand how Austin works': the problem is, we DO understand how Austin ‘works’- some of us have understood that since the early 80s. And the way Austin works NEEDS TO CHANGE!

We do not work to elect people simply to vote the most conservative they can in the highly constrained environment Joe Straus maintains which precludes the truly tough votes. We work to elect WARRIORS to batter the ‘country club’ doors down and force votes- win or lose- on the really tough issues of the day. We are told good conservatives cannot get committee chairs if the current ‘Powers That Be’ are contested. Well, they weren’t contested in the last session- so kindly point out the powerful committee chairs that WERE assigned to ‘good conservatives’- NOT ONE!

Scott Turner is a unique individual, the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. As the ‘principled conservative’ core continues to grow each term at a faster rate than the ‘getalongs’ can corrupt them, we will soon reach a tipping point wherein the majority of the GOP caucus will put up someone like Jonathan Stickland for House, and the ‘getalong’s will face vindictive retribution for years of poor treatment. Scott Turner represents a unique opportunity to make the changeover WITHOUT that sort of vindictiveness. It simply isn’t in Scott’s character. We WILL throw in one caveat, though. If Joe Straus IS elected and the House TRULY DOES have a conservative session- as CONSERVATIVE GROUPS define it, NOT Austin- then those who voted for Straus will win a reprieve.

Bottom Line: It's his funeral.

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Update: An earlier version of this misspelled Gio's name and incorrectly attributed the last statement to the NE Tarrant Tea party.  These mistakes have subsequently been corrected.  We got sloppy, we apologize.