Sunday, May 31, 2009
Burnam Will Push Keller Impeachment Next Session if Nothing is Done in Interim
Rep. Lon Burnam spoke on personal privilege this afternoon to explain to members that he would not force his Sharon Keller impeachment resolution through ... yet.
The resolution would have called for the creation of a committee to consider the impeachment of Keller, presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, who refused to allow her office to stay open until after 5 p.m. so a death row prisoner's lawyers could file an appeal. The prisoner, Michael Richards, was executed later that evening.
Burnam has criticized Keller for "callously [dismissing] a clearly relevant appeal to spare a man's life." At the end of April, he said he would use the House rules to force a vote on the resolution.
But today he said that he would "accommodate the concerns some [House members] have expressed" and allow other authorities to deal with the question of her impeachment. However, if she were still on the bench by the beginning of next session, and if he were still a legislator, Burnam said he would "feel compelled to bring this resolution to the floor."
Coming to a Texas highway near you: License plate readers
Deep in the Senate's version of the massive TXDoT bill is a provision that, if not stripped out in conference committee, will allow local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to install license plate reading cameras on Texas highways. The technology - already in widespread use in surveillance-crazy Britain - is very powerful, enabling the government to automatically photograph the license plates of moving vehicles and check the information against databases. If the system finds a "match," officers can be alerted.
Continue reading »
Senate Bill 690: Trimming the Grassroots
Karen Hall’s knees still haven’t recovered from gathering signatures door-to-door for an amendment to Bryan’s city charter. “Democracy is a messy business,” she says, “but we like it.”
Continue reading »
Women to Watch: Rep. Kristi Thibaut, D-Houston
After she lost her first campaign for a House seat from Houston in 2006, Kristi Thibaut showed up in Austin anyway. What she encountered, as she lobbied unsuccessfully for lower utility rates with fellow ACORN activists, was almost enough to make her wonder why she'd wanted that seat in the first place.
Continue reading »
One Weekend a Month, Two Weeks a Year, Five Years in Jail
Sometimes our legislators don't even know what's in their own bills. This morning, Rep. Dan Flynn (R-Van) discussed his House Bill 1165 before the Defense & Veterans Affairs Committee and it was evident that he hadn't read - or maybe didn't understand - what all was in it.
Continue reading »
Copyright © 2000-2009 The Texas Observer
- Investigative reporting is supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Institute.
- Books & the Culture is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission of the Arts.
Comments