by Donna Garner | November 8, 2010 | Opinion
The next time someone you know says it is not important to vote or you yourself begin to wonder if your vote really counts, I want you to remember this race between Democrat Texas State Rep. Donna Howard and conservative Republican Dan Neil. The Austin American-Statesman just minutes ago posted the following in which Howard appears to have won by a mere 16 VOTES.
If the Republicans in the House will elect a conservative Speaker of the House (Rep. Warren Chisum) instead of the RINO Joe Straus, we Texans will not have to worry about ultra-liberal Democrat Donna Howard’s bills ever seeing “the light of day” in the next legislative session. This is yet another reason why all of us need to contact our Republican Representatives and urge them to elect Rep. Warren Chisum as Speaker.
Now let’s see what kind of a person Democrat Donna Howard really is so that the voters across Texas can see whether 16 votes really matter or not:
Texas State Rep. Donna Howard’s Vendetta
by Donna Garner | October 18, 2010
Who is Texas State Rep. Donna Howard (Democrat-Austin, HD 48)? What is her agenda? Why is she taking time away from her campaign for re-election to the Texas House in order to produce an ad that blasts the Texas State Board of Education conservatives?
Will Rep. Howard be elected again to her House seat on Nov. 2, 2010? I certainly hope not.
Rep. Donna Howard lost two elections when she ran for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) some years ago, and she obviously bears much ill will toward the conservative members of the SBOE.
First, we must understand that Rep. Donna Howard is a Texas Freedom Network board member. This puts her in direct alignment with Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign (largest homosexual organization in the U. S.), the ACLU Texas, Alliance for Clean Texas, Center for Public Policy Priorities, Equality Texas, NARAL Pro-Choice, Sierra Club, Stand Down Texas, TAPPA, Texas Impact, The Texas Observer, and MECha (who wants to eliminate the border with Mexico entirely and honor Mexican revolutionary war hero Ernesto Zapata and Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara).
TFN and Rep. Donna Howard support condom use instead of abstinence for teens, embryonic stem-cell research, and the gay and lesbian agenda.
Because TFN and their supporters were not able to prevail against the conservative SBOE members when they adopted the most fact-based, academic standards in the country in English / Language Arts / Reading, Science, and Social Studies, TFN decided to get State Rep. Donna Howard to do their dirty work through the legislative process.
In the 2009 Regular Session of the Texas Legislature, TFN/Howard filed 15 anti-SBOE bills. Thankfully, only one passed (the video streaming of the SBOE meetings).
Rep. Donna Howard co-authored HB 1323. This was captioned as an anti-bullying bill but was actually nothing more than an attempt by TFN in coordination with the homosexual lobby to force a thought-crimes bill upon our Texas school children.
HB 1323 contained the words “actual or perceived…gender identity or expression (transgender)” and “sexual orientation” making it clear that its real intent was to force students to accept homosexual behavior as being normal. Again, there were enough conservatives in the Texas Legislature that HB 1323 did not pass.
In the same 2009 Regular Session, Rep. Donna Howard was also joint author of HB 710 which was to place the SBOE under periodic review by the Sunset Advisory Commission. Had this bill passed, the SBOE would have been the only elected body in Texas to be subject to Sunset Review. The bill failed.
Rep. Donna Howard was the prime author of HJR 77 which was to take away the authority of the Permanent School Fund (PSF) from the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education.
As reported by the Austin American-Statesman on 4.27.09, “In a display of parliamentary high drama, the initial tally fell one vote short of the critical 100-vote threshold needed to allow the measure to skip another House vote and go straight to the Senate. But the ‘ayes’ grew to 104 after some members said the wrong position had been registered due to ‘machine malfunctions.’ ”
Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, was courageous enough to call the “machine malfunction” a ruse and said, “…the verification vote was called for the express purpose of finding another vote and that same tactic was used by the Democrats on both HJR 77 and HB 710.” Thankfully both bills were both eventually defeated.
Did Rep. Donna Howard have grounds to try to take the Permanent School Fund (PSF) away from the elected SBOE members?
As of March 12, 2010, here is how the PSF did under the able leadership of the SBOE, and this was during the time that the rest of the country was in an economic downturn:
The Texas Permanent School Fund, which guarantees school district bonds and supports the purchase of student textbooks, realized a 25.02 percent return in 2009.
The fund, the largest public endowment for public schools in the nation, was valued at $22.2 billion on Dec. 31, 2009, up from $18.1 billion on Dec. 31, 2008.
The PSF’s return was in the top 10 percent of public funds greater than $1 billion and in the top 10 percent of endowments greater than $1 billion last year. It was also in the top third of public funds and endowments for the two-year period ending Dec. 31, 2009.
Another ploy by Rep. Donna Howard and her Democrat cronies was to try to get HB 420 passed. HB 420 was to strip a State Board of Education member’s ability to run as a Democrat or as a Republican; they would have to run as “independent” candidates. This would mean that voters would not know whether a candidate for the SBOE is a Republican or a Democrat.
Obviously, it is important for voters to know which party platform SBOE candidates support so that voters can better decide for whom to vote. The present system of electing SBOE members who clearly identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans has worked just fine for many years; no change is necessary. HB 420 was also defeated.
To help people get a better understanding of Texas Freedom Network and Rep. Donna Howard, please read the following information:
In 1995, TFN was founded by Cecile Richards, daughter of Texas ‘ liberal Democrat Governor, Ann Richards. Cecile is the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and still serves on the TFN Board of Directors. Cecile was deputy chief of staff for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and worked with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU is closely associated with ACORN.
When Cecile left for Washington, D. C., Samantha Smoot took Cecile’s place. When Samantha left for Washington , D. C. in 2005, she went to work for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual organization in the country.
TFN, Planned Parenthood, and the Human Rights Campaign work together as “triplet sisters.”
Texas Rep. Donna Howard (Democrat) is a board member of TFN. NARAL Pro-Choice has given Howard a 100% rating. Texas Eagle Forum gave Howard a rating of 8% in the 2009 legislative session.
In 2009 Howard and TFN railed against the SBOE members who wanted students to be able to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of the leading scientific theories, including evolution. In fact, Howard even appeared in a petition drive headed up by TFN called “Stand Up for Science.”
The Chair of the TFN Education Fund is Janis Pinelli, who gave campaign contributions to Obama, Hillary Clinton, Emily’s List, the Texas Democratic Party, and Rick Noriega for Governor.
Also on the TFN Education Board of Directors is Dale Linebarger who is treasurer. He is the Senior Advisor to Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson. This firm started collecting debts for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2006 after a generous lobbying effort of half a million dollars to pressure Congress to hire outside bill collectors instead of requiring the IRS staff to do the job more inexpensively (Business Week, 8.25.06).
Dale Linebarger made political contributions to Obama, Ruben Hinojosa, Al Franken, Lloyd A. Doggett, Ken Salazar, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Border Health PAC.
Why does Border Health PAC sound familiar? According to Texas Monthly (Aug. 2009), Border Health PAC gave politicians huge contributions “to order expensive medical procedures” and came under scrutiny because of the New Yorker (June 2009) article that stated the costs of treating Medicare patients in McAllen were twice the national average. “The primary cause of McAllen ’s extreme costs was, very simply, the across-the-board overuse of medicine.” Dale Linebarger gave monthly contributions to Border Health PAC throughout 2008.
Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune is also on the TFN Board Education Board of Directors. He is the senior pastor of what is considered to be one of the most liberal churches in Austin — University Baptist Church. As stated on its website, UBC is sometimes “in conflict with the views of the wider religious community and secular society…in the 1990s it ordained a homosexual deacon.” Bethune has stated that he opposes “attempts to dilute, distort, or censor the teaching of evolution in biology textbooks.”
Also on the TFN Education Board of Directors is Diane Iresone (Clinical Social Worker) who has given political contributions to Obama, John Kerry, Lloyd A. Doggett, John Edwards, Emily’s List, Barbara Boxer, and Hillary Clinton.
Rebecca Lightsey is on the TFN Education Board of Directors and is an attorney and executive director of Texas Appleseed that focuses on social justice issues. Lightsey worked on Governor Ann Richards’ staff and supported Democrat Rick Noriega for Governor of Texas.
Rhonda Gerson is the Chair of TFN and has given campaign contributions to Hillary Clinton, Democrat Senator Carl Levin, and Emily’s List.
In conclusion, it is easy to see that State Rep. Donna Howard (Democrat) is an extremist in her views and deserves to be “dumped” by the voters of HD 48.
Please feel free to share this e-mail with any voters who live in the Austin area; they need to know what Rep. Donna Howard’s agenda really is.
