#TXLEGE: Macias apologies for originally electing Capriglione....

"Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot who also became a traitor."
Luke 6:16

This is great, but the best part is the explanation about how the reality of the legislative process all-too-often works:



Highlights:

• Gio's chief political strategist in 2011 and '12.

• Held extensive coversations at the time.

• Ran against liberal Republican Vicki Truitt.

• Leadership tells legislators not to vote based on policy or principles, but to vote on personality.
• Giovanni explicitly campaigned on doing the opposite.

• "Over the past six years, I have watched [Giovanni] become everything he campaigned against [in 2012], and for that: I'm sorry."

• Had a good session in 2013.

• "Something happened between his freshman and sophomore year, it is one of the most severe shifts that I have ever witnesses in my entire political career."

• "Giovanni made a decision.  He decided it was better to evaluate each and every one of the votes he takes....And instead of looking at it according to how he had told you he would vote.  Instead, he would see who the author was.  If that author was powerful.   What the chairman of the committee thought that was hearing a bill of his.  Who the leadership was lining up behind, and how that would effect his standing in the chamber."

• That decision making model was exactly what Giovanni campaigned against in 2012.

• Link to the 2015 Mark Jones study.

• Luke fired Giovanni in the summer of 2015: "I turned him down.  I told him I wouldn't work with him."

• Giovanni paid his next consultant $28,000 next cycle.

• Got even worse in 2017.

• In 2012, he campaigned against accounting gimmicks in the budget.  In 2017, he worked to advance a budget full of accounting gimmicks.

• Armin Mizani is his opponent now.