State Rep. Patricia Harless is scared of you. Well, at least not in the way she should be. The Republican from Spring is scared of having grassroots conservatives like yourself in control of the speaker’s dais. Given the electoral fate of those who’ve stood by Speaker Straus, maybe she should be scared of you—or at least scared of a primary challenge.
Rep. Harless (R – Spring) is backing Joe Straus for re-election as speaker this year, according to the Austin American Statesman, before holding even one town hall meeting with her constituents about it.
Why? One reason is because “he gets out of the way and lets us do our job.” Really? Recent emails show his office did their best to keep conservatives from doing their jobs.
If she thinks she was sent to Austin to stifle conservative reform by keeping spending high and making it harder to figure out where your tax dollars are going, she actually did an excellent job.
Harless was one of 16 Republicans who joined with the Democrats in voting to support the idea of using the Rainy Day Fund for recurring expenses, instead of looking for ways to cut out waste or to spend tax dollars more efficiently.
And in case you wanted a better, more straightforward way of seeing where all of you tax dollars were being spent, she voted against that too.
Given that, it’s no wonder her other reason for continuing to support Speaker Straus is because in her words, “these activist groups being in control of the speaker’s office scares me.”
I can only imagine how the thought of taxpayers having control over their own house of representatives must send chills down the spine of establishment politicians like Rep. Harless.
After all, it must be very reassuring to have the support of a speaker who lost five committee chairs in this last election cycle to those “activist groups,” on top of the six committee chairs who retired, rather than face rejection from taxpayers.
If Rep. Harless is really scared of you the taxpayer, it’ll be fun to see what she thinks next election cycle when she’s up for re-election with the support of a speaker who can’t even protect those most loyal to him.
Scary stuff—for her, at least.
