There's an article out in
D Magazine about a conservate family who moved to Midlothian, Texas and took an interest in their schools. They learned a lot. They learned their school was a "Robin Hood" school, so poor it got money from other districts. A mysterious political group sabotaged local school board and bond elections. There was an "economic development fund" siphoning money from their district and giving it to the concrete plants, which were pumping out massive amounts of pollution and dodging regulators. Joe Barton (Smokey Joe) didn't want to talk about it. And, when they became active in politics, people broke into their office and their home, and opened their mail.
Even if you don't care about local Texas politics, it's a great article about stumbling onto the political scene. Their sentiments about coming at this from a Republican viewpoint even reminded me a bit of Growing Up Red
This couple were also interviewed on the Glenn Mitchell Show yesterday. A caller said it was attracting interest statewide and even at the White House.
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Here are some interesting excerpts from the D Magazine article:
As a Republican, I believed in free enterprise and figured regulators probably kept the plants on a short leash. The whining environmentalists were wackos.
"You think Libertarian joggers are bugging our phone and casing our house and reading our mail?" I asked in such a way that would communicate how silly it sounded.
"And they sabotaged the school bond election," she added.
She wrote U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Ennis), believing that he would want to know about TXI and TIRZ and that he would make things better. After all, we'd voted for him twice. And weeks earlier, Julie had written him about our bond election being sabotaged by the Libertarians. She was most likely now on an FBI list. And, of course, so was I. Barton never responded.
After telling O'Leary and Frisinger about the hearing, I wrote an op-ed piece in the News. The column was titled "Hearing or Farce?" and it prompted a call from state Sen. Craig Estes. After first asking me if I was recording the conversation (I wasn't), he expressed displeasure with what I'd written.