For the past few days I have been reading about Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick's fall in the Houston Chronicle and The Burnt Orange Report. The Burnt Orange Report has provided excellent moment-by-moment coverage of this fascinating drama. The blogosphere is a great place to read about these kinds of developments because it affords lively discussion and debate among the bloggers and their readers.
Yesterday morning the Houston Chronicle's Lisa Falkenberg wrote an excellent and very revealing commentary on how Houston would benefit from a House Speaker who is from a large urban area.
After reading the article this life-long urban dweller and native of NYC who has lived in Houston for over 20 years, finally understands why I have been so frustrated by how our Austin lawmakers operate. Falkenberg's article nailed it for me. Texas has been run by a bunch of country boys who are more concerned about boll weevil eradication and transporting hogs to markets than they are a big city's crammed prisons, crumbling inner city schools, over-extended hospitals, torn up roads and gridlocked freeways.