Texas State Rep. McCall won't seek reelection

Hat tip to The Texas Tribune





2010: McCall won't seek reelection
by Ross Ramsey

Brian McCall, a key member of House Speaker Joe Straus' leadership team, won't seek reelection next year.

McCall, a 51-year-old Plano Republican, wasn't available for comment. But he's contacting supporters and allies today to tell them of his decision.

He's the chairman of the Calendars Committee that sets the House's daily agenda and decides which bills do and don't come to a vote. And he's a member of the Polo Road Gang, a group of 11 Republicans who met on January 2 at Rep. Byron Cook's Austin house to choose their candidate for speaker. That bloc, combined with most of the House Democrats and some votes picked up later, made Straus the speaker and ousted Midland Republican Tom Craddick from the post.

He will have served 20 years in the House when his current term ends in January 2011, and he has remained popular in his district: He never got less than 65 percent in a general or primary election and usually ran without opposition. His HD-66 is solidly Republican and would be a difficult pickup for the Democrats even with McCall out of the running.

McCall has been mentioned as a possible candidate for state Senate — speculation resulting from Sen. Florence Shapiro's efforts to win a promotion to the U.S. Senate. Both are Plano Republicans, and if Shapiro were to run, McCall is in a spot to try for her job. He's played down those rumors. And now that Kay Bailey Hutchison has said she'll remain in office until after the first of the year (and the filing deadline for candidates in the 2010 elections), the fuel for that political speculation is scarce.

McCall was himself a candidate for speaker before the 2007 legislative session. He was the apparent leader among candidates to challenge Craddick that year, but stepped aside to back Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who went on to lose to the incumbent. Both men backed Straus at the beginning of this year, and both were rewarded — Pitts with a new run as chairman of House Appropriations, and McCall, with the job at Calendars, his first chairmanship.

New GOP off to bad start

Hat Tip Palmetto Scoop

SANFORD CHOSEN TO LEAD
REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR’S ASSN.

Everyone keeps talking about this “new Republican Party” that must emerge from the ashes of last week’s embarrassing national electoral defeat.

Unlike in 2006, though, when we had the same kind of talk but no action, I really think the party will get it’s act together and usher in a new generation of strong, conservative leaders who will… oh, wait, nevermind.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was elected the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association on Friday.

Sanford succeeds Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who will now serve as finance chairman. The association has been meeting this week in Miami — and some discussions have revolved around what went wrong for the party on Election Day.

“I am honored and excited to become chairman of the Republican Governors Association as we work together to win a majority of governors by 2010,” Sanford said in a statement released by the group. “Republican governors are natural leaders who will find solutions to our nation’s challenges and bring back the party.”

This is great news for Republicans who like picking petty fights with other Republicans, hypocritically wasting tax dollars on environmental nonsense and personal slush funds, flip-flopping on key issues, and putting television cameras ahead of taxpayers.

For the rest of us, it’s just another sign that we still haven’t learned our lesson. But on the bright side, “Quantum of Solace” opened today and it will probably rock so hard that we’ll forget all about the demise of the GOP.