I’ve Seen Enough Of “I’ve Seen Enough”

I've seen enough. Right now Texas politics — culture and collegiality, magnitude and intensity of dysfunction — is the worst it's been in decades. More broken than ever. Not impossible but v hard to see how it's put back together #txlege

— Evan Smith (@evanasmith) February 1, 2024

 Lacey Hull is my local GOP State Representative.  She is very conservative.  I have never voted for her, and don't plan to anytime soon.  I'm not even going to vote in the GOP primaries for her, just to tweak the nose of Paxton and his bullies. But she voted to impeach Ken Paxton, so....

Today in the mail comes a flyer telling me "WE DON'T WANT SHARIA LAW IN TEXAS."  Why are we at risk for sharia law in Texas?  Because Lacey Hull voted "with every Democrat":

to pass a resolution commemorating Eid-Al-Fitr.

to pass a resolution recognizing Ramadan and commemorating the first Ramadan party in the Texas Capitol.

to recognize March 7, 2023 as Texas Muslim Capitol Day.

to "make the 88th Legislature the most pro-Muslim session in Texas history."

She doesn't seem to have voted "with every Democrat" on that last one, and I think it's just an opinion, not an actual vote on a resolution.  Just a wild guess.

Yeah, I know, 23 years later and still....

I guess this is because Lacey Hull didn't vote against the law requiring booksellers to review all their books for "inappropriate content" before selling them to public schools.  So far as I know she did vote for school vouchers, over and over and over again.  As I say, she's way too conservative for my tastes.  But she voted to impeach Ken Paxton.  An impeachment that one state rep. wants reopened:

Retiring state Sen. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, asked Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — the acting “judge” in the Senate trial and a staunch, vocal critic of the impeachment — to reopen the case after what he characterized as an admission of guilt by the attorney general.

That "admission of guilt" is Paxton trying to lay down on the whistleblower suit and get it dismissed by admitting everything if they'll just go away (empty-handed, of course). 

So, yeah, Gutierrez appealing to some "identity politics" is not the ugliest thing going on in Texas politics right now. But “more broken than ever”? I really abhor exaggeration, especially as a form of self-aggrandizement. 

I’ve definitely seen enough.