A Texas Story: Wendy Davis for Governor of Texas

WHY WINDY?  

A TEXAS STORY

Like any true Texan, Wendy Davis has taken on her share of tough fights.

Raised by a single mother, Wendy began working after school at age 14 to help support her mom and three siblings. By 19, she was on her way to becoming a single mother, working two jobs just to make ends meet.

Knowing that education was the only path to creating a better life for her young daughter, Wendy enrolled at Tarrant County Community College. After two years, she transferred to Texas Christian University. With the help of academic scholarships, student loans, and state and federal grants, Wendy became the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, graduated first in her class, and went on to Harvard Law School.

LISTEN to Wendy Davis and her daughter tell why she's running for your vote.

COMMITTED TO PUBLIC SERVICE

After graduating with honors from Harvard Law, Wendy helped grow a successful business in Fort Worth and served nine years on the Fort Worth City Council, where she was recognized as a leader on economic development issues. As chair of the City’s Economic Development Committee, Wendy helped create numerous public-private partnerships and successfully helped bring thousands of new jobs to Tarrant County.

Wendy was elected to the Texas Senate in 2008, defeating a longtime incumbent in a race widely considered one of the biggest upsets in Texas politics in recent years.

A RECORD OF STRENGTH

In 2011, Senator Davis stood up and filibustered a budget that slashed over $5 billion from our public schools. And Wendy’s leadership in the legislature was instrumental in getting a majority of that funding restored to the budget in 2013.

Wendy believes our children deserve access to a world-class education. She believes that improving Texas education can create jobs and keep Texas on top. She continues to work on improving public schools by reducing the number of standardized tests given to students and negotiating the first cost-of-living increase for retired teachers in more than a decade.

Wendy Davis has also pushed for and supported policies that would create jobs for our service men and women upon their re-entry into civilian life and make sure that veterans, service members, and their families are provided every opportunity for a quality education.

Wendy has helped pass important accountability measures to ensure taxpayer dollars meant to help Texas businesses are spent in the manner in which they were intended — to create jobs and boost economic development efforts across the state of Texas.

A VISION FOR TEXAS

Wendy is running for Governor because she loves Texas — not just for how good it is, but for how great it can be. The opportunities that Texas made available to Wendy — quality public education, a strong community college system, college loan and grant programs for deserving students — are what made the difference in her life. Wendy knows that every Texan deserves those same opportunities to do better. She’ll fight every day to ensure that Texas remains a state where hard work and determination are rewarded and everybody has the chance to succeed.

JOIN THE TEAM - ELECT WINDY DAVIS

#TeamWindy 

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Lt. Gov. Candidate Van de Putte’s Education Proposals—Fulfilling the Promise of Public Education

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), candidate for lieutenant governor, laid out her vision for the future of Texas public schools today in terms that left no doubt how much she differs from her opponent, Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston).

Accompanied by supporters including Texas AFT members from San Antonio affiliates, Van de Putte spoke outside a San Antonio elementary school whose students are among the five million enrollees in our state’s public schools who would benefit under her plan.

Linda Bridges, president of Texas AFT, offered this comment today on that plan:

I don’t know how the contrast between Leticia Van de Putte and Dan Patrick could be any clearer after reading Van de Putte’s plans for education.

On the one hand, you have a proven leader who has fought for public education throughout her 14 years on the Senate Education Committee, while on the other you have a guy who spent his first term chairing that committee with the intent to dismantle public education via private-school vouchers and bills to help turn neighborhood schools over to private charter operators.

Patrick didn’t even wring his hands over the $5.4 billion cuts to education and resulting loss of 11,000 teachers in 2011. He twiddled his thumbs, then voted for the cuts, while Van de Putte fought to bring sanity into the budget and provide full support for the 80,000 new students that enter our schools each year.

Our teachers and the parents who support them understand that the best way to educate our kids is to give them full support, equal opportunity and proven policies like pre-K and smaller class sizes featured in Van de Putte’s plan. They know that further segregating our schools into the haves and have-nots—as Patrick proposes with his privatization efforts—is the biggest mistake we can make for Texas’s future.

Van de Putte’s plan as outlined today (see http://leticiavandeputte.com/texasfirst-education/) includes these key elements:

--restore full-day funding for quality pre-K programs;

--reduce class sizes in pre-K (because currently there’s no cap on class size in pre-K);

--invest in the schools, proven programs, and teachers our schoolchildren need to reach their potential;

--end the over-reliance on and punitive nature of standardized testing—return to diagnostic use of testing, reduce the number of tests, and make tests more timely so that early interventions can help students graduate and get a head start on college and career;

--promote access to blended learning for all students, expanding broadband availability to all, ensuring that digital learning is of high quality, and maintaining vital face-to-face interaction with teachers; and

--improving community-based control and accountability to parents and taxpayers—for example, by ensuring that parents have real access to the board members who determine curriculum and instruction for their children (in contrast to some charter s that have been allowed to open here without anyone physically located in Texas on their governing board).


In contrast, Sen. Patrick in his time in the Senate not only has embraced deep cuts in education funding, but also has sought to expand the misuse of standardized testing, and he has served as the enthusiastic pitch man for private, corporate takeover of public schools via private-school vouchers and other schemes.

Texas AFT represents more than 65,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, support personnel, and higher-education employees across the state. Texas AFT is affiliated with the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers.

Congratulations to the Dems!

In the recent primary run-off election, Gregg County democratic voters showed up for the races.

Voters had to choose between party regular David Alameel and fringe candidate Kesha Rogers, and in the county where Rogers campaigned, she bested Alameel with 53 percent of nearly 1,100 ballots cast. Rusk and Upshur counties’ results were closer to the statewide winning percentages for Alameel.  

Dr. David Alameel won with 71 percent 

of the vote across Texas. 

Democrat David Alameel believes in the American Dream because he has lived it himself. He came to America when he was just twenty years old leaving behind his large Lebanese Christian family. David pumped gas and worked in the fields to help his family. 

He proudly served in the U.S. Army, then worked his way through college and received a Dental degree from the University of Texas. Later he moved to Dallas and founded a network of dental clinics that grew into a multi-million dollar enterprise. In recent years he sold that business and has become a highly successful investor and an expert in financial markets. 

He is a strong critic of Wall Street and says we must reform current policies "that subsidize big banks and corporations and hurt the middle class."

In the only other Democratic runoff for statewide office, Jim Hogan earned the votes over Richard “Kinky” Friedman in the race for Texas Agriculture Commissioner.  Hogan drew about 54 percent of the vote across Texas. This was similar in Gregg County, but voters in Rusk County gave Hogan an even wider margin of victory.

Jim Cogar, Gregg County Democratic Chair remarked on the voting record for Gregg County.

"Kudos to all those voters who voted in the democratic primary run-off.  But I must admit, we made history!" he said.  "We were the only county in East Texas who had a majority voting for the candidate who runs as a democrat, but wants to impeach the President and has disrespectful graphics on her campaign site."

Cogar concludes that there is work to be done in Gregg County.  "Who says we don't need voter education?" he said.

Jim Cogar, Interim Chair of the Gregg County Democratic Party

The filing deadline to serve as a candidate in the upcoming Democratic Party Primary Election was on March 4, 2014, and Jim Cogar ran unopposed for Chair of the Gregg County Democratic Party.  

Find out more about Jim, and his qualifications and goals for the GC Democratic Party.

Qualifications to be chair of the Gregg County Democratic Party

• As a retiree, I am able and willing to devote the time, as well as the energy to serve the Democratic Party.
• My 22 years’ experience in the U.S. Navy taught me the skills to lead, organize, and delegate so as to bring structure and efficiency to the GCDP.
• As a former president of the Connecticut Soccer League, I have experience in dealing with a wide variety of interest, cultural, and social groups.

Goals as Chairman for the Gregg County Democratic Party