Free Republic

Scott McClellan's critics in Washington have speculated about his motives for writing a book bashing President Bush, but back in the former White House spokesman's home state of Texas, some chalk it up to something very simple: his gene pool. Bush defenders and impartial observers point in particular to Mr. McClellan's mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, as having set a precedent for turning on former allies, while others say that his family tree had strong liberal leanings. They also said his decision will make it hard to do what all Texans do: return home. "Scott's going to be something of a...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

Some Republicans groaned at Gov. Rick Perry's announcement that he plans to seek another term in 2010, but Mayor Bill White's camp reacted with glee. White has made no effort to hide the fact that he is looking to run for governor after being term-limited out of the mayor's office next year. And Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, the biggest vote-getter in Texas history, has been more than hinting that she plans to "come home" to run for the same office. She outlined to Texas Monthly last November a plan to resign the Senate in 2009 to make the race, while...

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas. That is, if it ever gets built. All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it. People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.” The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for...

AUSTIN - Republican Gov. Rick Perry beat a unique set of challengers Tuesday for another term that could make him Texas' longest-serving governor as he presses priorities such as border security, strict state budgeting and an ambitious transportation plan. It was a less-than-cliff-hanging end to a race that started with a lot of potential for drama ? thanks to the entry of colorful independents Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn ? and ended with much of that potential unrealized. Early returns showed Perry ahead with about 40 percent of the vote, followed by Democrat Chris Bell, who had about 29...

The ability to move people and things in an efficient manner is essential to competing in a global environment. Economic and population growth have strained many aspects of Texas' transportation infrastructure, particularly in urban areas. Congestion not only decreases safety, it also reduces economic efficiency, raises transportation costs and otherwise hampers the competitiveness of the state economy. With the growing population and expanding economy of Texas, transportation constraints and congestion will only worsen over the coming decades. In fact, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) projects that road use will rise by 214 percent during the next 25 years. Although...

If all the meetings on the Trans-Texas corridor proved one thing, it was that the majority of the people, both Democrat and Republican, are against it. We still have one more chance to show our strong opposition and that is at the ballot box on Nov. 7. Since the contract for the corridor would run for 50 years, maybe more, by which time gasoline will only be a memory, how does it make any sense to build an ethanol plant in Temple while destroying the blackland prairie needed to grow the corn to process there? It doesn't! Since the motivating...

(October 30, 2006)—The multi-billion-dollar Trans Texas Corridor will pump billions of dollars into the state’s economy and will create millions of jobs according to a new study by Waco-based economist Ray Perryman. Click Here To Read The Full Report In “Moving Into Prosperity: The Potential Impact of the Trans-Texas Corridor on Business Activity in Texas,” Perryman says the project will make the state’s economy more competitive. “Because the TTC enhances efficiency, improves logistics, and reduces transportation time and costs, it increases the ability of companies within the region to expand intrastate trade and operations, and, thus, increase market size and...

Incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry faces Democratic challengers Chris Bell and Independents Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn in the 2006 gubernatorial race. In the fourth part of News 8 Austin's five-part gubernatorial forum, the candidates discuss transportation and energy. Q: Now, let’s combine public transportation and developing renewable energy. What do you think we should be doing to make Texas the leader in the nation in these areas and why should Texans care about that? Strayhorn: Well, we certainly need every renewable energy and we need wind generation and we also need telecommuting. Fifteen percent of my employees are...

Two private-sector groups have submitted proposals to develop the Trans-Texas Corridor-69, a 600-mile thoroughfare that may wind around Lufkin and Nacogdoches one day. The bid process is part of the effort to create a public-private partnership that the Texas Department of Transportation says would speed the construction of "one of the state's priority transportation projects." Trans-Texas Corridor-69, if and when it is built, is expected to connect with Interstate 69, which will stretch from Canada to Mexico. The proposed Texas corridor would start in South Texas and pass Houston, Lufkin and Nacogdoches before hitting Texarkana and/or breaking off into Louisiana....

The governor's race is becoming a referendum on the Trans-Texas Corridor toll road. Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Perry supports the TTC that would parallel Interstate 35 from Laredo to Oklahoma. However, it could gobble up 81,000 acres of rural land according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Also, a large chunk of the land used would be in North Texas. Lance Haynes, a Republican, said he wonders if his family's 68 acres in rural Collin County might be covered in concrete in the near future. The land lies within the path where the state could route the TTC and he's...

Secret parts of a contract for the Trans-Texas Corridor have been out for more than two weeks now. So has a development plan that outlines how state transportation officials and a foreign-led consortium plan to plow the countryside with toll roads and railways to relieve growing traffic on Interstate 35. That's plenty of time to begin scouring the thousands of pages — on the Web at KeepTexasMoving.com — to find out what the big secret was. But so far, no one can or will say if there's a detail, some twist or mumbo jumbo that, if found, would blow the...

New ad hammers a key campaign theme. Sunday, October 15, 2006 "Beyond," Carole Keeton Strayhorn's latest ad, is expected to be viewable starting Monday at http://www.carolestrayhorn.com. KEY POINT 'Tolls across Texas?' ANALYSIS Strayhorn hammers one of her familiar Perry critiques — that he's out of step with voters by advocating networks of congestion-relieving toll roads around the state. KEY POINT 'Gov. (Rick) Perry's plan is beyond anything we've ever known. It's the largest land grab in Texas history.' ANALYSIS Perry's envisioned Trans-Texas Corridor might eventually require nearly 600,000 acres for roads, rail lines and rights of way. That would not...

Details of a new television campaign ad from independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn: TITLE: "Beyond" LENGTH: 30 seconds. PRODUCER: Alex Castellanos, media consultant; WF of R Inc., media placement. AIRING: Started Friday in most markets; will be airing statewide by Monday. SCRIPT: Carole Keeton Strayhorn: "Tolls across Texas? "Gov. Perry's plan is beyond anything we've ever known. It's the largest land grab in Texas history. A deal to seize more than a half million acres of private property and hand it over to a foreign company, so they can charge us tolls. "I believe Texas property belongs to Texans,...

On Sept. 30, about 100 people carrying protest signs and handfuls of dirt rallied at the Alamo to protest Gov. Rick Perry's massive toll road plan. Perry's feisty challenger, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, spoke at the event, which was not covered by the Express-News. Our no-show wasn't a judgment call. A reporter who was notified about the rally simply did not pass the information on to editors who decide what to cover and who will cover it. It was a flub, primarily by the Express-News, but also by the organizer, the San Antonio Toll Party, which needs to be more effusive...

The more William Molina heard about toll road plans, the more outraged he got, until finally he picked up his camera and did what he does best. Molina spent the past several months shooting more than 40 hours of footage at public meetings in San Antonio and nearby towns, talked to activists, tried to talk to toll road advocates and spliced together a film documenting what he says is a nexus of tremendous change. "I just wanted to capture history," the veteran filmmaker said. "One day we're going to look back at this and say, how did this happen." "Truth...

The Milam County portion of the “Hands Across the Corridor” Statewide Rallies was held Saturday, Sept. 30, on the Milam County Courthouse lawn. We had a great assembly of concerned Texans, Democrats, Republicans, Strayhorn Independents and even a couple of really “Kinky” folks. Everyone in attendance agreed that our current Governor and many of our senators and representatives have forgotten the constituents that they are supposed to represent. They seem to be representing only ‘big money contributors and companies' whose interests are not what is best for Texas, but how much money the ‘projects' (toll roads and corridor) can make...

The Texas Transportation Commission unrolled Sept. 28 the long-awaited road map for the Trans-Texas Corridor. Release of the Master Development Plan will result also in public disclosure of the full contract between the state and Cintra-Zachry, a private joint venture between the Spanish firm Cintra and the Texas highway contractor Zachry. Both Cintra-Zachry and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) appealed a ruling from the Texas Attorney General’s office that the full contract is an open record. A trial was scheduled for Oct. 10 in Travis County district court. The master plan calls for the prompt building of seven segments...

AUSTIN - Can the four major candidates for Texas governor debate each other for an hour on live television without being seen or heard? Probably not, but Belo Corp., sponsor of the only such gubernatorial showdown this fall, will test that possibility Friday night, both with its restrictive distribution rules and the time slot. Originating in Dallas, the debate will be carried live on the company's WFAA flagship; Belo affiliates in Houston (KHOU-Channel 11), San Antonio and Austin; Belo's Texas Cable News (TXCN) and will be streamed live on their Web sites. TV stations in smaller towns outside Belo markets...

About 30 opponents of Gov. Rick Perry’s controversial Trans-Texas Corridor plan for superhighways statewide rallied at the McLennan County Courthouse Saturday morning, waving plastic bags of soil and vowing to resist any efforts involving eminent domain to seize their land for highway construction. “This is a little piece of my land,” Riesel rancher and farmer Robert Cervenka said. “And this is all they’re going to get from me without a fight.” Although some of those gathered at the steps of the courthouse were allied with independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn, others said they were for any political force capable...