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Author : Yong Mook Kim
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Fearful that a special election for U.S. Senate could result in a Democratic victory, Congressional Republicans appear to be pressuring U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison not to resign unless she is elected governor–while her own allies are increasingly indicating that she will follow that path and not resign at all if she is unsuccessful in her bid for state office.

Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Dallas) is one of the leading Congressmen pushing Hutchison to stay put:

Rep. Pete Sessions told me Friday that Kay Bailey Hutchison shouldn’t leave the Senate to run for governor.

Instead, Mr. Sessions said Ms. Hutchison should run for governor from her Senate seat.

[A similar post also appears at www.tlcv.org/blog] 

Conservationists were saddened to learn of the passing this weekend of Edward C. "Ned" Fritz. Mr. Fritz was a founder of the Texas League of Conservation Voters in 1970, and the boards of directors and staff of the League and the League's Educational Fund extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Dubbed the Father of Texas Conservation by the Nature Conservancy, Ned Fritz was a founder and leader of a variety of conservation and environmental organizations, including the Nature Conservancy in Texas and the Texas Land Conservancy. TLCV board member David Todd remarked to the

First off, I would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Rep. Alonzo and his family.

Stace at Dos Centavos wrote last night:

Tragedy has struck the family of Texas State Representative Roberto R. Alonzo of Dallas. While details about the accident and final funeral arrangements are still rather sketchy, what is known at this time is that Rep. Alonzo's older brother, 58-year-old, Mr. Ramon Alonzo and his 4-year-old grandson Elisha T. Alonzo (Rep. Alonzo's nephew) were on a family fishing trip Saturday afternoon, Dec. 20, in Crystal City, in South Texas. The grandson accidently fell in the water, the grandfather jumped in to try to save him, and both tragically drowned.

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It’s Monday, and that means it is time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance’s Weekly Blog Round-Up. This week’s round up–the last weekly round-up of 2008–is compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

Next week, the Texas Progressive Alliance will bring you its Best of 2008–a compilation of the best posts from member blogs and bloggers from the historic year past.

Happy Holidays, and enjoy the last regular round-up of 2008.

At TruthHugger The crystal ball in BossKitty’s head has instructed me to share its opinion on how the final month of a pretentious Bush Administration contributes to the destruction of the America we knew.

Perhaps Eileen Smith of Texas Monthly only looked like one of the mothers attending Gov. Rick Perry's news conference promoting a "Choose Life" license plate.

But apparently getting passed over for a news release was the last thing The Pink Lady wanted before going on Christmas vacation.

"At the end, press secretary Allison Castle handed out statements to the reporters. And by "reporters," I mean: Wayne Slater, Jason Embry, Elise Hu, R.G. Ratcliffe, [SKIP OVER], Kelley Shannon.

"I'm the skip over. And this was no, oops! didn't see you there! honest mistake! this was a deliberate pass-pass-pass-pass-SNUB-pass. She even looked back at me over her shoulder triumphantly as if to say, oh BURN.

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Last year, Capitol Annex published several installments in a Holiday Gift Guide. This year, time got away from us and we weren’t able to do a series of posts as we had previously. However, we didn’t want to leave those of you who might need last-minute holiday gifts for the politically inclined Texans on your lists, so we’ve compiled quite a list for you this year.

Of course, since we’re a bit late in publishing, you might not get them in time for Christmas or Chanukah, but at minimum you can stick the Amazon.com receipt in an envelope and blame it on us.

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Christine DeLay, the wife of indicted former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) is attempting to quash a subpoena served on her in connection with a civil suit in Houston tied to the scandals that eventually shuttered DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority political action committee.

Christine DeLay (right) is attempting to quash a subpoena served on her to give a deposition in a civil lawsuit brought by the former treasurer of her husband's PAC, Americans for a Republican Majority.

The case is Teltschik v. Williams & Jensen, et al and was filed in August 0f 2007 in Federal District Court in Houston.

Paul Burka:

White and Sharp may have miscalculated by jumping into a Senate race that may never come to pass.

Evan Smith:

The serious point here is one I and others have made before: You are not a real party,  you are not a competitive party, unless you field actual, plausible candidates for high office. And from this vantage point, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

Eileen Smith:

Since the fan-f—ing-tastic Blagojevich morning jog clip has been hastily removed from YouTube, I had little choice but to post this video of Evan and I talking about the Senate race, Bill White, John Sharp, and another crappy year for the D’s in 2010.

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As expected, many of Texas’ Congressional Republicans who have spoken out so strongly and voted against bailing out the auto industry have permanently and irreparably damaged their reputation with an important group of their constituents–and sources of funding for their campaigns: Texas auto dealers.

The Dallas Morning News has more:

But it might not relieve the tensions in a strained relationship between new-car dealers – many of whom are active politically – and the Republican Party.

Many area dealers say they were deeply disappointed that Republicans they had supported essentially put politics over the economy in opposing loans to GM and Chrysler.

Only three members of the area congressional delegation supported the loans – Democrats Eddie Bernice Johnson and Chet Edwards and Republican Joe Barton.

Granddaughter Brenda Baker set the tone when she greeted about 200 family members gathered Sunday in Austin to celebrate the life of Amanda Roberts-Jones, who turned 110 just five days earlier.

"We don't want to see any solemn faces. We only want to see joyous faces because we're celebrating a home-going of a woman who lived a full life," she said.

The scheduled birthday party turned into a tribute for Amanda Roberts-Jones, who died in her sleep two days after her birthday - and three days before her party.

Brenda Baker's grandmother, whose father was a slave, lived through an entire century and parts of two others.