It’s time for the week that was in Texas politics with Ayan Mittra, editor for the Texas Tribune.
This week marked the release of quarterly fundraising reports. Houston Republican Congressman John Culberson was actually outraised by a couple of Democratic candidates for his seat.
“It’s not insignificant,” Mittra says. “The Democrats in Texas have not had a great string lately, so just the fact that they’re getting these kinds of numbers that are close is something to keep an eye on.”
Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from Dallas, said in an interview with a local NBC affiliate this week that preventing sexual assault is as much a woman’s responsibility as a man’s – that how a woman dresses and behaves plays a role in whether she’s assaulted.
“She walked back those comments,” Mittra says. “She said she was speaking from an old school perspective and she was trying to speak in a way that empowers women, which obviously it was not taken that way.”
This might surprise some Texans, but an early voting period starts next week. We’ve got a statewide election on several constitutional amendments, one of which would limit how long the governor’s appointees could serve.
“There’s seven amendments on the ballot, and obviously there will be other things depending on where you live – bond elections for school districts and such,” Mittra says. “One of the main topics is some easing of restrictions on borrowing against your home equity. This thing you mentioned about the governor’s appointees – this is limiting appointees by the governor who have to be confirmed by the Senate. This is kind of limiting the terms that they can serve after their terms expire.”
Listen to the full interview in the audio player above.
