Travis County Leaders vote Higher Taxes and Spending

Thanks to Sam Bisco and his Democrat friends on the Commisioners Court, the Era of Big Travis County Government Continues, as the County passes budget, tax increase:

Travis County commissioners on Tuesday adopted a $663.6 million budget that includes a tax increase largely intended to cover raises for employees.

The average raise for the law enforcement departments is a hefty 11.5%. Public employee unions pushed this and the Statesman notes:

"The commissioners passed the budget and tax increase by separate 4-1 votes. Commissioner Gerald Daugherty was the dissenter, saying he could not justify the increases. ... The unions contributed heavily to the campaign of Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt. Last year, she defeated Karen Sonleitner, who opposed the kind of pay raises sought by the unions."

The public employee unions have gotten all the Democrats to roll over for them, and the taxpayers are the one's holding the bag. Daugherty is the lone Republican in the Travis county Commisioner's Court and is now the lone holdout against higher taxes and spending in country Government.

Naishtat, Watson plan Travis Tax Hike

Remember in 2004 when the Hospital Taxing District was shoved down the throats of County-wide taxpayers (Austin voters were already paying) by the liberal (can you say socialists) voters of Austin? Well, they’rre baaack!

Clarke Heidrick, the Board Chairman of the Travis County Healthcare District has gleefully talked Elliot Naishtat (who never met a tax he didn’t like) and our newest State Senator, Kirk Watson (no enemy of taxes either) to sponsor companion pieces of legislation. Senate Bill 1107, which has already been passed out of the Senate State Affairs Committee, and House Bill 2378, which will be heard this week by the House County Affairs Committee, will allow Mr. Heidrick to reach further into our back pockets to get whatever money he and his high-priced cohorts want to fund their little social experiment.

Remember this Taxing District was supposed needed to keep the People’s Republic of Austin Hospitals from losing money caring for “indigent patients” – can you say “Illegals”? You and I (responsible taxpayers with medical plans) pay for our services on a pay-as-you-go system. The District needs more of our money to pay for other people. According to one press release from the committee promoting the passage of the initiative during the May 2004 local elections:

“The proposal would hold property taxes steady for Austin residents, who pay 5 cents per every $100 property valuation for healthcare costs, and raise taxes for county residents from 1 cent to 5 cents per $100 valuation, equal with the City of Austin rate.”

The current rate is 7.34 cents/$100 valuation. So the lies continue... Here’s another lie from the Statesman Article:

“Heidrick said that the board has no immediate plans to use any new taxing authority, but district officials have said they are constrained by having the lowest property tax rate of any urban hospital district in Texas.

“Constrained” from doing what? Spending our money?

This Bill is an end-run abound the stopgap measure of "rollback elections", giving the Travis County HD another avenue for increasing taxes.

We need to stop this. This is the membership of the County Affairs Committee:

House Committee on County Affairs (C210)	Clerk: Travis Sampley
Legislature: 80(R) - 2007	Phone: 463-0760
Appointment Date: 1/26/2007	Room: EXT E2.122

Position	Member
Chair:	Rep. Wayne Smith
Vice Chair:	Rep. Elliott Naishtat
Members:	Rep. Valinda Bolton
	Rep. Garnet Coleman
	Rep. David Farabee
	Rep. Patricia Harless
	Rep. Joe Heflin
	Rep. David Leibowitz
	Rep. Todd Smith

If you know any of these legislators contact them and tell them to stop HB 2378 in committee. Contact Rep Wayne Smith, Chairman @ (512) 463-0733 and ask him to kill the bill. Contact your Senator or any Senator you know and ask them to vote against bringing SB 1107 to the floor, and to vote against the bill if it is brought to the Senate floor.

- Pat O'Grady

Donna Howard says "No" to "In God we Trust"

Donna Howard (HD-48) one of only two Reps who voted against the Display of "In God We Trust" in the State House of Representatives. No word on who she does trust.

Paper Trail or Lost Cause? Republicans Must Decide

By Mac McGuire

For the second general election in a row, no local, state or national Republican won Travis County. The 2004 election was very bad for Republican candidates but 2006 was much worse. The Republican/Democrat base trend chart pictured here removes the swing (ticket splitter) voter from the equation and deals only with base voters determined by the fewest voters of each party to vote for any candidate on a precinct by precinct basis. The trend line from 1990 thru 2002 projected the parties to get within 4% of each other during the 2004-2006 voting cycles—instead the base diverged to an 18.4% gap (59.2 minus 40.8) in 2004 and further expanded to a 25.6% gap in 2006.

It is not reasonable to blame this divergence on the dissatisfaction voters have shown nationwide for the Republican party although that certainly would affect the swing voter and to some extent would have converted some swing voters to Democrat base voters. The local divergence is simply too great for facile analysis such as this. It appears more is at work here and requires a closer look.

The closer look immediately reveals the fact that this divergence coincides with the introduction of electronic voting into Travis County. Readers (LTR February 2005) will remember that negative votes showed up in early returns in the 2004 election. The county clerk glibly explained this away but whether her explanation was valid or not is beside the point. The very troubling point is that negative votes can be programmed into the system and then become virtually impossible to trace. For example, as was pointed out in the Feb. `05 article, the individual precinct and early voting site electronic machines can be programmed for ten negative votes for one party and ten positive votes for the other (e.g. 100 voters who split their tickets 50-50 would be recorded as 60-40). This would cause a 20 vote swing at each location which would be impossible to pick up but would result in a vote swing of several thousand county or district wide. More than enough to change the results of several individual contests.

This radical change in voting patterns cannot ignore the possibility—even probability—of election fraud. It is extremely difficult to get anyone to act because you must deal with elected officials to correct the problem and they have been elected by the system currently in use and are reluctant to make any changes. The problem is not Democrat or Republican, it is the hubris of incumbency. A major effort needs to be made now to get a law passed requiring that a paper trail be provided whenever and wherever electronic voting methods are used. Until this is done all else is futile.

For example, after I testified on the need for a paper trail before the Elections Committee during the 2005 legislative session, a guy came up to me, introduced himself and shook my hand. He said “I’m your Democrat counterpart in Harris County. Looks like you have the same problem here in Travis that we have down in Harris.”

Unfortunately, he was very probably exactly right!

Note: HBO has produced a documentary entitled “Hacking Democracy” which makes precisely this point and then proves it by actually changing the results of a mock election to the consternation of voting officials overseeing the process. If you missed the show on HBO, you can review several of the points by going to HBO.COM, click on “Documentaries” and then click on “Hacking Democracy.”