The
State Legislature is getting close to declaring sine die for the 83rd Session. There
is one legislator who has made a name for himself in his brief time in Austin.
In
May 2012, Jonathan
Stickland scored an upset victory over Bedford, TX City Council Member
Roger Fisher. Due to their being no Democratic opponent in the November 2012
Election for HD-92, Stickland scored a comfortable election night victory of
4-to-1 over the Libertarian candidate.
Since
arriving in Austin in January, Rep. Stickland has made quite the reputation for
himself (NY Times story).
First
off, I have to commend him for his efforts to do right for our Veterans. I give
credit where and when it is due. He is pushing legislation that would allow
children attending Texas schools that have deployed parents returning home up
to 10 excused absences.
However
I cannot look past the things he has said in the past.
Rep.
Stickland can attempt to pass himself off as a legislator that is looking out
for the good of his constituents. His election was backed largely by the
Northeast Tarrant Tea Party which is a cancer on Northeast Tarrant County
politics. At a recent Mid Cities Democrats meeting, a member was in attendance in
one of their meetings. Their discussion was about Agenda 21 and Eminent Domain.
Agenda
21...? Wasn't that the order
Chancellor Palpatine gave to Clone Troopers to eliminate the Jedi in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of The Sith?
No.
Agenda 21 is a United
Nations proposal that was put together in 1992 to ensure a more livable planet
for future generations.
Wait...
Nineteen FREAKKIN' NINTY- TWO?!
You
mean to tell me that these people are paranoid about some United Nations
proposal passed in the 1990s?!
It
has been twisted by far-right elements as somehow the United Nations is going
to circumvent the sovereignty of the United States Constitution.
Do
these people realize how much power United Nations resolutions and proposals
have on the United States?
About
as much power if the Mayor of Denton declared 29 October Michael Watts Day.
These
people are nothing new. I remember hearing the stories about UN Black
Helicopters
during the Clinton Administration in the 1990s and my God.... talk about
paranoia. These people make Dale Gribble look sane.
These
are the types of people that Rep. Stickland has aligned himself with.
Oh
there's more...
There's
always more.
Rep.
Stickland in his campaign literature stated that marriage is between one man,
one woman, and God.
You
know... I remember reading a Daily Kos story during the 2012 Elections about
how Gay Republicans
were continuing their naïve belief that their party will dump their anti-gay
rhetoric.
Well, just recently at a RNC meeting in Hollywood, CA there was an
approved resolution reaffirming their anti-marriage equality stance. It was
unanimous. So much for learning the lessons from 2012.
There
is one line in the Daily Kos article that stood out:
"Every generation has its
retrogrades."
A recent ABC
News-Washington Post
shows that 58% of adults support gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to
get married.
That
same poll asked persons 18 to 29. Support for gay marriage in that age bracket
is 80% or 4 out of 5 people. That will eventually influence the other age
brackets. I will no longer support gay marriage as a person 18-29... In 6
months, I will support gay marriage as a person 30-44.
I
hate to say this, but... Rep. Stickland will become a retrograde for my
generation when it comes to same-sex marriage.
In
addition to his campaign literature, the Burnt
Orange Report and D Magazine
reported that Rep. Stickland hired Tony McDonald as his Chief of Staff. Mr. McDonald
has a known history of homophobic and racist statements. Here
is snippet of them from the Burnt Orange Report.
It
didn't help that during a
Tea Party Q&A session during the campaign in March 2012 he made this
statement on why he would oppose Rep. Joe Strauss's candidacy for State Speaker
of the House: "because
as a Christian, I believe we must call evil evil."
Rep.
Stickland later apologized and stated that he didn't know that Joe Straus was
Jewish (you would think that would be something the Texas GOP would inform candidates
about, but....). Opposition to Joe Straus's re-election as House Speaker especially
among Republicans has been one of focus prior to the start of every new
session. It is a contentious issue among the various factions of Texas
Republicans and has even
dangerously flirted with anti-Semitism. An observation
from the Star-Telegram's politics blog cites that members of the Jewish Press
were unsure whether to cry foul because of the complexities of the situation.
Rep.
Stickland signed
on to the letter asking the Boy Scouts to keep its ban on allowing gays to
openly serve as participants. He said to me that he is pro-gay.
Really?
He did.
In
a Facebook conversation dated 25 August 2011, before he entered politics,
then-private citizen Jonathan Stickland stated this:
I am pro-union rights, and I am pro-gay
marriage.
In
fact he said a LOT of things in that conversation... At the bottom of this post
is the complete conversation taken from my Facebook page.
Here
are some of the lines:
George you have missed the boat buddy.
The government is not able to do it anyways. The country is broke. I know you
don't give a flip about that fact and are ok with denying it until it kills us
all but I know it is real.
The middle class is gone because of
retarded liberals like yourself who punish people for being successful and
succeeding. You have run all the good jobs to other countries because companies
refuse to pay the 2nd highest corporate tax rates in the world. You continue to
try and pick winners and losers in the free market ruining the chances of a
entrepreneur ever getting going. You did it with your liberal policies.
Your savior Obama refuses to do
anything about it. he is Bush's 3rd term as far as I am concerned. He has
nothing to offer but keeps throwing shit in the way of the free market working
through all of it on its own. Amazing she hasn't died already.
What pisses me off about morons like
you is you refuse to own up to the truth. Fine have your beliefs, but don't
bullshit me and tell me you give a flip about the constitution. Or free
markets, or that your anything other than a socialist and a weak one at that.
Obama sold you up the river yet you still beg to suck off the teet for more. It
is horribly sad to see you care more about your damn political party than this
country, otherwise Obama would at least have a challenger in the primaries.
But nope ain't gonna happen. You'd
rather sick back collect your unemployment, go on a march or two on my families
dime in San Fransisco and shout about how the white Christian man is ruining
your life and the environment. And how bad Bush sucks and Bachmann is a hater.
You care more about Obama winning and the GOP losing that fixing this country
or holding Obama accountable for his lies and deceptions. You make me want to
puke.
Wow...
where do I begin?
I am a bit extra heated tonight... I
just wrote a $2600 check to the state of Texas for my property taxes that will
go to pay for a educational system that sucks and my family will never use. It
is bullshit and its unfair.
Guess
what? People pay their taxes just like I do and my family members and my
friends who live in your district. Hate to inform him, but he is not a
beautiful and unique snowflake.
It is not my responsibility to help
other peoples children Stacey at the expense of my own. I didn't sign up for
it. If I want to help them let me decide on my own which way I want to do it.
It is immoral for someone to take my money and spend it on things I disagree
with. That is not freedom and it is not Liberty.
I don't
have kids. Though, my sister has a daughter. I want to ensure that she is well
educated and has the opportunities that I didn't have as a student. I want her
to learn math and science so that she might find something that excites her and
leads her to well paying career in a competitive global environment. As a
matter of fact, I want that for all the kids in this country. Having uneducated
people is not a good strategy for the short term and it most certainly is not
good for the long term.
I
hope the Birdville ISD sends him a bill demanding that they are refunded for at
least trying to educate him. I wish that my mother (who lived in the school
district while my sister and I attended Birdville school's) could ask for a
refund on such a defective product of this fine school system.
One
more thing, he authored
a letter and later
wrote HB 649 supporting Hobby Lobby in their
decision to deny employees contraception coverage.
As
a man, I'm tired of this contraception debate. In fact, my mother, sister, and
various aunts are tired of the contraception debate. They and various women I
have talked with are tired that cis-gendered men, who are biologically
incapable of becoming pregnant, are making decisions on women's health care
choices. I thought we settled this in the 1960s. Apparently
not. I
had to inform him that 68%
of Texan Women support some form of access to family planning and
contraception.
Maybe
he skipped those days in middle school and high school when we had those gender
segregated assemblies explaining the key physical differences between boys and
girls.
Why
have I finally decided to share this information?
Rep.
Stickland is an example of that the Tea Party led GOP is NOT in the best
interest for Texas. Instead of serving the people who live in his district, he
is at the call to an extreme agenda and only serves a small group of individuals
with a limited world view. They say jump and he says how high. Rep. Stickland
is anti-woman, anti-education, anti-LGBT, and an overall regressive individual set
to hold Texas back.
I am
part to blame for this happening. I have enabled this behavior by trusting that
Republican Primary voters in HD-92 would have the sense to choose someone who previously
served in government over a high school dropout. I regret not getting this
information out to more people like I should have. Maybe this information will
be good for when he runs in 2014.
Overall
as voters we have enabled this behavior. I'd like to believe that Texans do not
share Rep. Stickland's views, but sadly in the Republican Primary Election for
HD-92 in 2012 the voters felt differently.
Dan
Patrick (not the sportscaster), Debbie Riddle, Louie Gohmert, Joe Barton, Rick
Perry, Ted Cruz, and countless other Republicans who aligned themselves with an
extreme agenda seem to think they speak for all of us. I would like to think
that my fellow Texans do not share their extreme views.
There
is one thing I have asked myself: Why do we let these people speak for us?
San
Antonio Mayor Julian Castro put it bluntly when he spoke at the University of
North Texas back in February: "People
DON'T vote."
We
know things about people like Rep. Stickland, but we do not get active and most
importantly... WE DO NOT VOTE. Rep. Stickland and his co-horts count on you on
being apathetic because he and his party can't win on the issues because they
are on the wrong side of the issues. Again, I bring up the contraception issue.
Here is a person who will shout personally liberty from the mountain tops...
#StandWithRand
— Jonathan Stickland (@RepStickland) March 7, 2013
But
he is willing to side with someone who is willing to limit women in making
their own personal and private health decisions and has also stated his opposition
to marriage equality. I thought it was "with
Liberty and Justice for All" not, "well... Liberty for only THESE
people."
And
who could forget this gem from The Rachel Maddow Show back in May 2010 when
Rand Paul won the Republican Primary for US Senate in Kentucky.
The
national Republican Party recognized they are having problems winning elections
and that embracing an extreme agenda might provide short term and regional success
but in the long term and the grander scope it is turning off key voting
demographics.... particularly Women voters.
Surprisingly,
they make up 50% of the electorate... who knew.
But
in states like Texas there is an attitude of business as usual among
Republicans. Though this session has been slightly better than the previous
one, they are still pursuing a radical agenda that guts education and other
services that people are reliant on, give more power to corporations, and embraces
bizarre policies (such as allowing teachers to carry firearms in schools).
We
can't count on the Republican Party to get their house in order because they
are too afraid of what might happen if they go against the extreme Tea Party
Agenda. We need to follow the examples of voters that participated in the 2012 US
Senate races in Missouri and Indiana. They said no to Todd Akin and no to Richard
Mourdock. Certainly we can say no to this agenda.
It
begins in 2014 and most importantly it begins with you... if you are willing to
get involved.
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