How can it possibly be bad to have mechanisms in place that slow down Congress?

In the 111th Congress, there were 4059 bills introduced in the Senate, and 6561 bills introduced in the House – resulting in 342 laws enacted.

In the 110th Congress, there were 3741 bills introduced in the Senate, and 7336 bills introduced in the House – resulting in 460 laws enacted.

This all the while – gasp – the rules of the Senate require 60 votes to shut off debate before proceeding to a matter or voting on it, often referred to as the filibuster.

So, what’s the problem? Does anyone in America – besides the arrogant Democrats in Congress who have been engaged in an unprecedented power grab since being handed a historic defeat by the American people last November – honestly believe that Congress needs to pass more legislation?

Do a better job? Sure. But MORE? Of course not.

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Anyone following the race for Texas Speaker knows that it is possible (and critical) to knock off liberal Republican Joe Straus, but that to do so requires unifying behind a single conservative alternative. Anyone, that is, except for State Rep. Warren Chisum. Or does he?

As quick background – Warren Chisum is a Democrat-turned-Republican who has been in the Texas House since 1989, representing a West Texas district (88) north of Amarillo. He’s old school Texas politics – where “conservative” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In October, he announced a challenge to incumbent speaker Joe Straus, a liberal Republican who was given power by 65 Democrats and 11 pathetic Republicans two years ago. After announcing, Chisum gained absolutely no traction – and frankly, after garnering a few early supporters, has been absent from the fight and rumored to be traveling and away from the state.

Meanwhile, Ken Paxton, who represents McKinney (just north of Dallas), decided that Straus needed a serious challenge. After all, Texans sent a strong message in November by boosting the number of House Republicans by 22, giving them a 99-51 super-majority over Democrats – and with 2 Democrats switching parties this month, the number is 101-49. So Paxton, a proven limited government conservative with a strong record, who is young and joined the House in 2002, has been plucking off members one-by-one, doing all the hard work required to get it done. And he has gained significant national endorsements – from former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to Gun Owners of America and other conservative groups.

In short – Paxton can win. Chisum cannot. It is that simple. Yet Chisum will not get out of the race and endorse Paxton with only 3 weeks left before a vote will occur on the floor of the Texas House for speaker, which right now would empower the Democrat-supported Straus. Why?

Because Chisum is more interested in making a point (but keeping his friends) than in actually winning the race (and therefore actually changing things).

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The race for Texas Speaker is now in full sprint. The finish line will be the first week of January – and it’s time for all good Texans to take action to make sure we have a conservative Speaker of the House.

Erick and Drew Ryun have written several posts detailing this fight. Joe Strauss is the incumbent Speaker, having risen to that post two years ago by garnering the overwhelming support of Democrats (65) as well as 11 weak-kneed Republicans. The result? Almost half of committee chairmanships to liberal Democrats and still others to those weak Republicans, causing a much larger percentage of Republican bills to be killed than Democrat bills, and abandonment of important measures like Voter ID.

But while it is obvious that Joe Straus should not be the Texas Speaker – it’s TEXAS, after all – why should it be Ken Paxton, and why should you care?

Ken should be Speaker because he’s a good man, he’s well liked and he’s a limited government conservative with a proven track record. You should care (whether you live in Texas or not) because if we are truly going to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, we must have competent, conservative leadership at the state and local level to promote federalism from the bottom up.

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In the wake of yesterday’s indefensible 81-19 vote in the Senate to spend hundreds of billions of dollars that we do not have in exchange for temporary tax rate extensions we could have achieved anyway or the lapsing of which could have been plopped in the lap of the President, we are left hoping that Republicans in the House of Representatives will stand up and be counted.

After all, we have come to expect Republican Senators to be spineless and incapable of standing up on principle. It is who they are. The “club.” A group of self-promoting, power-hungry fools who are more concerned with maintaining camaraderie with turncoats like Lisa Murkowski, pushing earmarks and getting re-elected than in doing what’s best for the country. Save one or two exceptions, they repeatedly violate their oath to defend the Constitution and forsake even the slightest bit of devotion to fiscal responsibility or respect for their constituents.

But now – especially with rumors that the tax bill has stalled in the House – the House Republicans have a chance to do the right thing and prove they are better than those in the Senate. They can demonstrate that they actually “get it,” even before the 60-odd new members arrive in a few weeks. They can demonstrate they are not liars – that they actually do want to limit spending and defend the Constitution. They can demonstrate that they understand that “bipartisan compromise” is code for “Democrats win, America loses.”

And there’s a bonus, too. President Obama is calling around telling fellow democrats that he must pass this to “save his presidency.” As if there was not a bigger signal that this is a ridiculous “deal.”

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Less than a week after being sent back to the Senate after a 10-year absence, 67 year-old former Senator / DC lobbyist / Senator-elect Dan Coats apparently feels that it is critical to launch his new tenure with an assault on the filibuster.

Hmmm… Way to signal to the world that the establishment got it right in convincing you to run, and that you are ready to hit the halls of Congress and fight for limited government, Senator.

In an interview with NPR on November 4, and then again just yesterday on Fox News, Coats suggested that the filibuster should be ended on the “motion to proceed.” In other words, he would allow the filibuster on the final vote, but not on the motion to bring the matter to the Senate floor for debate. His reasoning is that “[t]here’s just too much need for moving forward with action to address our serious economic situation and a number of other issues to not go forward on that basis.”

Really? Right, because what we really need is for it to be easier for the Senate to pass more laws. What more do we need than MORE laws?

This kind of talk is decidedly un-conservative. For those who are attracted to the siren call of a one-day Republican majority bringing “good” legislation to the floor… don’t be. There is very little “good” legislation every offered by these clowns and if you believe in limited government, the last thing you want is for the “cooling saucer” that is supposed to be the U.S. Senate to become a microwave oven for fast-tracking legislation.

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Much will be made about last night’s election. Massive Republican gains across the board will properly be celebrated by some, but countered by others who think those gains might have been more if we’d just chosen the “right” candidates.

You see, to some in the Washington establishment – only they are smart enough to know who the right candidate is. We must have candidates who “can win,” they say. They will focus on Senate races in Colorado, Nevada and Delaware, in particular, as examples of candidates gone wrong. Of course, in so doing, they will gloss over those conservatives who shook the establishment to its core en route to victory, such as Mike Lee in Utah, Marco Rubio in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.

But all of this completely misses the point.

The point is that the Washington establishment does not get to decide who we send to Washington to represent us, and it’s not enough to be a Republican, you must actually believe in the Constitution and limited government.

Of course, it is hardly surprising that in the face of massive establishment resistance and on the back of a Senate Republican Conference that never defined what it actually stood for, some of the insurgent “upstarts” fell short. And yes, in the end, we didn’t get everything we wanted last night. But, it’s ok. Do you realize what we’ve accomplished here? We picked up huge numbers of seats across the country and in the process, we’ve added a number of real conservatives to the mix. We’ve advanced the cause of liberty – and we’ve sent a message that this was only the first step of many more to come. It takes hard work to move the ball, and we’ve done it.

And now, we turn to the future by ignoring the establishment calls for pragmatism and the need to “vet” candidates,” and instead, we double down on freedom.

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So, expecting to pick up a number of seats by “newbies,” what do GOP leaders in Washington want to ensure? They want “GOP insiders to staff outsiders,” according to Roll Call. Eric Cantor’s staff added, “There’s a lot of important work to get done right out of the gate, so it’s important that newly elected Republicans have access to experienced, competent staff so that they can hit the ground running.”

According to Roll Call, “[a] Republican aide confirmed leadership’s interest in having staff that works well with Boehner to move the agenda forward.” And even better, the lobbyists and strategists are in on the act, as well – one lobbyist saying, “[y]ou want to be sure that the newbies, when they hit town, do not necessarily bring their campaign staff to run their Congressional offices, because in some cases they are totally ill-equipped.”

Having worked on the Hill, I can tell you that new members would be better off telling leadership to stuff it.
Of course (as anyone would understand), it’s good to have at least some experience in the office. I do not begrudge the desire of a new member to seek experienced staffers to complement their loyal folks from home who will come with them. Most offices end up with a mix of both.

But that’s not really what this is about at its core. This is about making sure the “newbies” do not rock the boat and get with the program… the Washington establishment’s program. The staff that the establishment will “suggest” to the new members will be the same freaking idiots who have been bouncing around the Hill forever and will be more likely to go along to get along – to continue the same way Washington has been working forever. Just take a look at top Republican offices – they are a bunch of re-treads from years past, Administrations past – and for those of us who have been in the trenches fighting for conservatism, let me just say that we have more often been fighting against them than with them.

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As you know, Senator Murkowski is mounting a write-in campaign to try to hold on to her Senate seat. Daddy gave her the very seat he held and vacated to run for Governor, after all, and she cannot let some upstart Tea Party guy like Joe Miller take it away from her.

Just this last week, according to Politico, the Anchorage Press asked if “Republicans are secretly hoping [she'll] win.” She replied, “Yes. Yes I do. Definitely.” She went on to say she expects a warm welcome by both her Democrat and Republican colleagues,” and that “they need my vote.”

Now, when she refers to Republicans, she isn’t referring to Alaska Republicans. She isn’t referring to Republican citizens across the country. She’s talking about Washington establishment Republicans. The very same Republicans who refused even to strip Murkowski of her seniority status on committees, and suggesting that the simple step of having her step down from leadership was sufficient… the “right result,” in the words of [Senator Hutchison **], for her selfish write-in campaign to preserve daddy’s gift to her.

Joe Miller must win this race.

** UPDATE: Senator Alexander’s staff emailed us to correctly note that I misquoted him. He did not say it was “the right result.” That comment was offered by Senator Hutchison when she also said “I think we all consider her a friend.” Senator Alexander, on the other hand, made the altogether different statement, “we’ve done what we need to do, and we’ve decided not to do more.” I am certainly glad to clarify this matter.

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The long knives have been out for Sarah Palin since her emergence on the national stage just over two years ago. Katie Couric infamously mocked Sarah Palin and her family on tape even while the Republican Convention was still going on… long before her “objective” interview with her. But that was just the beginning.

Recently there was this silly effort by leftists to make fun of Palin for admonishing activists not to “party like it’s 1773″ yet. Not just random bloggers, mind you, but that paragon of fairness and balance from PBS, Gwen Ifill, lept at the opportunity to make fun of Palin for getting a date wrong. The problem, of course, was that Palin was correctly referring to the year of the Boston Tea Party. Ooops.

But then today, we see that Jonathan Martin with Politico has put out a piece trying to make the case that Palin is a “Diva.” In the article, he writes “[a]ccording to a source familiar with the situation, she backed out of planned interviews with conservative talk-show hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin the morning she was scheduled to talk to them.” Again, there’s at least one problem… that is, Mark Levin says that this is an outright lie. On Facebook, Mark says, “Sarah Palin never backed out of any interview with me. Period. And John Martin, the reporter, never contacted me to ask me directly. I insist on a retraction. ” Sarah Palin has her faults, but it sure makes one wonder how accurate this piece is when at least part of it is a flat out lie.

But that’s not the only example today. Jim DeMint was on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News last night. During the interview, the Senator made some comments about the state of the Republican Party – pointing out, essentially, that he “doesn’t want to watch the Republican Party betray the trust of the American people again.” Amen. But, what does RealClearPolitics put up as the headline?

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Governor Rick Perry knows – and is not afraid to say – that Texas has been successful in the current economic downturn because it limits the size of its government, keeps taxes low and has created a freedom-oriented environment that attracts business and workers. The result is not surprising – Texas leads the nation in job creation – having created 119,000 jobs between August 2009 and August 2010 as compared with just 214,000 job throughout the nation. Meanwhile, over 1000 people are moving to Texas every day. (see also this from repair_man_jack)

Perhaps more importantly, the Governor (along with Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott) has made crystal clear that the ways of Washington are not the way to a prosperous future and Texas is prepared to tell Washington to get out of the way – in the form of rejecting federal funds with strings attached, litigation against intrusive federal legislation and otherwise.

For this, the Dallas Morning News rails against Governor Perry for his “swagger,” and has put its weight (for whatever that is worth) behind Democrat challenger Bill White in the form of an editorial endorsement bristling with hostility to the current Governor. It would be tempting to go through the editorial line-by-line to point out the flaws in its reasoning. But, far more striking and worthy of note is the extent to which the newspaper’s editors made the case for Governor Perry in the process of endorsing his opponent.

While backing White, the editors describe him as a “progressive” (the stealth term for liberal) who “recognizes the need for new revenue sources.” It goes on to say that Texas needs “a solution-oriented leader” (code for big government activist) who is “focused on bolstering Texas – not doing battle with Washington” (i.e. ignore the harm Washington is inflicting upon Texas and just increase state taxes to deal with it).

This is a perfect explanation of why Perry is the right man for Texas, not Bill White.

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