Free Republic

Democrat Bill White's campaign is encouraging Texas' arts crowd to focus on Republican Gov. Rick Perry. A supporter of the former Houston mayor is organizing independent filmmakers to show the short films they are making on behalf of his campaign, White spokesman Katy Bacon said Thursday. The films will premiere at an as-yet unscheduled White campaign event in Austin. The initiative came into the spotlight after Perry's campaign noted that a filmmaker advertised on an actors' website for a look-alike for Perry, the state's longest-serving governor who is known for his thick mane of hair. The impersonator would be cast...

Exactly one year after it became an issue in his Senate campaign, Bill White — now the Democratic candidate for governor — is still explaining his past membership in a controversial group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The issue was not raised by his Republican opponent, Gov. Rick Perry, but by another Democrat who stands by his statements. White said he has a good record on guns. "I have a 'B-plus' rating from the NRA," he said. The Texas State Rifle Association confirms it gave White a "B" prior to the primary. But opponents claim White doesn't make the grade...

When President Obama pays a visit to Texas next month, Democratic candidate for governor Bill White will not be there. "I don't appear with a lot of people who come through the State of Texas," White said. "I am running for Texas governor, and I make plans. I don't go where other people go." White said he is not avoiding the president; the candidate said he was already scheduled to appear at the Johnson County Fair on that date, his only stop in that county before Election Day.

A Houston husband-and-wife lawyer team is planning to donate more than $3 million this year toward knocking Republican Gov. Rick Perry out of office and helping Democrats win control of the Texas House. Attorney Steve Mostyn said Tuesday he and his wife, Amber Anderson, are committed to putting a "substantial" amount of money that likely will exceed $3 million into ending hard-right Republican politics in Texas government. The pair already has put $1.3 million into committees that can help Democrat and former Houston Mayor Bill White win the governor's office, making them far and away his biggest benefactors in this...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans fundraisers for fellow Democrats in Republican-controlled Texas, but his party's nominee for governor said Tuesday he would not join the event scheduled in the city that he used to run. Former Houston Mayor Bill White told The Associated Press that he couldn't block Obama from supporting his campaign .. also suggested that Obama's visit opens the door for Republican Gov. Rick Perry to continue running against Washington insiders — an unwelcomed distraction in the Democrats' best chance to win the governorship in years. ... White is hardly the first candidate to ditch an Obama...

With the release of the campaign finance material from Gov. Rick Perry, we find that Democratic challenger Bill White is leading in the cash on hand amount by almost $3 million. Perry will report $5.8 million in cash, according to his campaign. White earlier today said he would report more than $9 million in the bank. "Texans for Rick Perry Raises Over $20 Million for '09-'10 Election Cycle Doubles Number of Contributors from 2006 Election More than $7 Million raised since Feb. 21; Reports almost $6 Million Cash On Hand" (from Rick Perry campaign press release)

The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows Gov. Rick Perry leading Democrat Bill White 50 percent to 41 percent.

Bill White tried to create some daylight between himself and Gov. Rick Perry on the hot-button issue of immigration Monday whiley denouncing Arizona's controversial new crackdown on undocumented immigrants. On Saturday, Perry told members of the National Council of La Raza that the Arizona law would be a poor fit for Texas, even while noting Arizona's frustration with a porous border. Speaking to the same group Monday, White, Perry's Democratic challenger, inched further, suggesting the law's central tenet — that local and state law-enforcement officials should verify the immigration status of people they detain — is fundamentally misguided. “It would...

Infamous Texas humorist, Jewish cowboy, and recent candidate for both Texas Governor and Agriculture Commissioner , Kinky Friedman, plans to make an official endorsement in the Governor’s race, according to a number of sources. During his political career, Friedman has campaigned as a Republican, Democrat and Independent, so this endorsement could finally shed a little light on where his true political motivations lie. Turns out it does, sort of. Kinky is forgoing the two top candidates in the governor's race to endorse Woodrow, a once-homeless rescue dog. The Woodrow for Texas Governor Campaign, united behind the motto "How Ruff Could...

The Texas Democratic Party's executive director, Ruben Hernandez, has filed ethics complaints against Gov. Rick Perry over a house he bought in College Station. ..."For three years, the Governor failed to report over $200,000 in debt he owed on a house in College Station, as well as over $11,000 in rental income he received from the property," Hernandez said in a statement. Perry spokesman Mark Miner responded, "This is nothing more than a desperate attempt by the Democrat Party to cover for Bill White's ethical scandals, failure to release his tax returns and profiteering during Hurricane Rita when he was...

Houston raids reveal drug gangs' savage attacks on illegal immigrants The smuggler, nicknamed "El Pelon," Baldy, forced the 11 illegal immigrants to strip naked shortly after they arrived at the southwest Houston stash house, hoping to complicate any plans for escape. He and the other smugglers led the men up a staircase to a room on the second floor.And there, they lived in what one Honduran immigrant described as a "state of terror" for days while the smugglers attempted to extort more money from their relatives to secure their release. One man said a smuggler stepped on his chest until...

The claim... In his speech at last weekend’s state Democratic convention, Bill White said: "They tell me that Rick Perry has served as governor longer than anybody except Sam Houston." The facts...

...District Judge John Dietz, declaring the money used to collect signatures "an unauthorized, illegal contribution," granted the Democratic Party a temporary restraining order to block Green Party candidates from being certified for the November ballot. Democrats contended that a petition drive to put Green candidates on the ballot was actually an effort to help Perry, a Republican, by diverting votes from his Democratic challenger Bill White... It had struggled earlier to get the required 43,991 petition signatures for its candidates to make the ballot. At a hearing Thursday, Green Party member Garrett Mize testified that Perry's former chief of staff,...

...When his candidate for governor, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, fell to Gov. Rick Perry, he switched his support to Democrat Bill White. Madden is one of a number of former Hutchison supporters who have crossed parties to support the former Houston mayor, including Houstonians Matt Simmons, CEO of Simmons & Co. International, and James Flores, CEO of Plains Exploration & Production Co. In a Republican-red state like Texas, White has to lure crossover voters, big-ticket and otherwise, if he is to have any chance at all of defeating the longest-serving governor in Texas history, although wooing Republicans and independents...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White released his income tax returns Tuesday for the entire time he served as Houston mayor, disclosing $11.8 million in adjusted gross income over six years, largely related to his energy career, including investments, fees and sales of stock in companies on whose boards he served. ...White previously had released his 2009 return and said he released the 2004 to 2008 returns to “call his (Perry's) bluff.” ...“This partial release of some tax returns creates further questions about how Bill White profited while serving Houston as a part-time mayor,” Miner said, citing work by BTEC Turbines,...

One of Houston Mayor Annise Parker's most visible goals since taking office in January has been to shake up the agency that oversees buses, rail and other forms of transit in and around the city. Parker's criticisms of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (known as Metro to those who speak Houston) have been music to the ears of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is trying to hold off a November challenge from Parker's predecessor, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White. Through press statements and Web videos and under the predictable mantra of "Metrogate," Perry's team has packaged Parker's criticisms with a series...

The Democratic nominee for the Texas governor’s race, Bill White, continues his downward spiral in his campaign against Texas Governor Rick Perry, the Republican nominee. His sparsely-attended political gatherings are showing its effects on opinion polls. According to the Houston Chronicle, “a new Rasmussen Reports poll of Texans finds Texas Gov. Rick Perry with enough support to win the election for the first time this year. Former Houston Mayor Bill White in the meantime has lost ground, despite a round of television advertising.” Apparently, Mr. White is losing support in his home-base of Houston. The ‘Bill White Houston Political Machine’...

...Grand Prairie Mayor Charles England said in prepared remarks that White, who is running against Republican Gov. Rick Perry, would bring Texans together to tackle the state's budget problems. In accepting the endorsement, White criticized Perry, portraying him as a divisive partisan. “We have a governor right now that divides the state into red teams and plays them off each other for the purposes of his political career,” White said. Perry spokesman Mark Miner dismissed the endorsement, saying it would not “hide the fact that Bill White is a liberal trial lawyer.” Miner also said Perry would unveil endorsements in...

...I'm sitting in the lobby of a Holiday Inn listening to one side of a cell-phone conversation between Bill White and Ricky Pfeil, an Amarillo minister... White, sitting on a leather couch with a cell phone to his ear, is wearing a blue suit, a flamingo-pink tie and boots. Although I can't hear the minister's questions, I can tell that White is trying to keep the focus on education. He tells Pfeil (pronounced File) that Texas needs to cut its drop-out rate and make college more accessible. "I'm not saying we ought to have a big government program - everybody...

HOUSTON -- A group of pastors wants Mayor Annise Parker to rescind her orders that expand the city's anti-discrimination policy to allow transgendered employees to use city facilities based on their gender identity. Wednesday, April 7, 2010