Not-ready-for-primetime Wendy Davis is having another bad run. Last week, in an interview that the Fort Worth Democrat probably hopes got buried by the holiday, Davis revealed that she doesn’t know the first thing about welfare policy in Texas (she’s running for governor). She isn’t familiar with SNAP benefit card rollovers, which enable some welfare recipients to drive around in luxury cars while on the taxpayer’s dime. She isn’t familiar with a bill intended to stop it. She just doesn’t know. That wouldn’t be so bad for a state senator, as Texas is a big state and there are lots of policies floating around out there, but for the fact that the interview was supposed to be about her stance on welfare. She supports it, just, not enough to familiarize herself with any of the details or know how to defend taxpayer’s interests.
This week, Davis is going on offense. Her campaign fired off an email slamming Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott — the likely Republican nominee for governor — for defending the state in a lawsuit over education funding.
As part of its efforts to avoid raising taxes during the 2011 session, the legislature cut some funding for public schools. It cut spending pretty much across the board, again, to avoid having to raise taxes in a tough economic climate. Cutting and prioritizing spending is something that Texas government has always done to balance its books and keep the tax burden as light as it can be on its citizens. About 600 schools responded to those cuts with a lawsuit that is still active in the courts. Abbott is defending the state’s side of the case.
Davis, as unfamiliar with what the state attorney general does as she is unfamiliar with the details of welfare policy, thinks Abbott shouldn’t defend the state in court.
It may be news to Davis, but that is what the state attorney general does. It’s the office’s job. In this case, Abbott is defending a law that was duly passed by the legislature and signed by the current governor, Rick Perry. Because that’s what the state attorney general does. Abbott didn’t choose the lawsuit. The schools sued the state. Would Davis have him surrender the lawsuit and abrogate the lawful actions of the legislature and the governor?
Abbott is simply standing up for the rule of law in Texas, something that Democrats in the Obama/Holder era have become less and less likely to do. President Obama decides he just isn’t going to defend laws that have been on the books for decades, he decides to just dispense with some immigration law by fiat, and he decides to suspend parts of his own healthcare law just to delay the inevitable chaos it will cause past the next election. His attorney general, Eric Holder, happily goes along with violating the law and the Constitution. In her attack on Abbott, Davis shows that she agrees with them and would bring that lawlessness to Texas if she were to be elected governor. She would pick and choose which laws to enforce and defend. If Democrat interests sued the state of Texas, she would not want the state defended in court. So Davis is an Obama Democrat in her contempt for the rule of law.
At the same time, Davis is also an Obama Democrat in her attitude toward education. The Democrats’ default setting on every issue is to throw more money at the problem, not examine what we are spending and see if it can’t be spent more intelligently or efficiently. Their other default setting is to oppose school choice, because apparently parents aren’t smart enough to choose good schools for our kids. Davis wants more money, and no choice, in education for Texans. That’s the Obama Democrat position, not the Texas position.
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