The Natives Are Restless-- In Texas

Regina Montoya is a successful attorney, chairwoman of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings' Taskforce on Poverty and senior vice president and general counsel of Dallas' Children's Medical Center. In 2000. In 2000 she ran against Pete Sessions, who beat her 100,510 (54.0%) to 82,685 (44.4%). She was able to nearly match his $1,986,465 fundraising haul (with $1,642,494). Things have changed in TX-32 (North Dallas from Uptown, Highland Park and University Park, up to Richardson and Garland to the eastern shore of Lake Ray Hubbard). Even though the Republican legislature recently gerrymandered the district to make it less Latino, Hillary actually beat Trumpanzee 48.5% to 46.6%-- in a district that Romney won 57.0% to 41.5%. And now Dallas area Democrats want Montoya to run against Sessions again. He appears very vulnerable and she's a pretty ideal candidate for a seat like that. The DCCC brain surgeons didn't run a candidate in 2016 at all and, in fact, the last time Sessions had a real challenge was in 2004 when he was in an incumbent vs incumbent battle with Martin Frost, each raising over $4.5 million. Since they, it's been a free pass from the DCCC. But not 2018 (they claim).

Over the weekend, Patrick Svitek, reporting for the Texas Tribune, wrote that Sessions' packed town hall on Saturday was raucous and angry-- and all about the highly unpopular TrumpCare, which can't pass without Sessions' connivance on the House Rules Committee. His constituents know it too. In the Republican primary Trump came in third behind Cruz and Rubio.

Addressing over 2,000 people, Sessions was frequently drowned out by boos and angry outbursts from the audience. Many of his answers were not entirely audible due to the crowd’s reaction as he began to speak.

“We are going to make the changes, we are going to pass the bill and we are going to repeal Obamacare,” Sessions said at one point, a declaration that gave way to sustained chants of “Vote him out!”

...“You know what? I know why you’re so frustrated: You don’t know how to listen,” Sessions said amid the negative feedback, inviting a new round of boos.

“I know how to listen,” Sessions added a short time later.

Sessions did appear to find some common ground with the otherwise largely hostile crowd. Asked repeatedly about Trump's proposed budget cuts to a number of federal agencies and programs, he expressed support for protecting the National Institutes of Health and Meals on Wheels, the service that provides food to the elderly and relies on grants that could be on the chopping block. Sessions also expressed doubt that Congress would go along with what he described as Trump's "drastic cuts" to the Environmental Protection Agency.

...In a congressional town hall in North Texas, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, withstood two hours of booing from hundreds of angry constituents at a local high school.

Lucky for Burgess, his district, TX-26, just a bit north and west of Sessions' (primarily Denton County), is way redder. The PVI is R+20, Romney beat Obama 60-38% and Trump beat Hillary 60.9-34.4%. Burgess was first elected in 2002 when he bear retiring GOP crackpot Dick Armey's son in the primary. Last year the Democrat "running" against him raised zero dollars, the same amount the Democrat who ran against him in 2014 spent. In the 8 times he's run, the DCCC has never even tested his popularity by backing a candidate. And, worthless as ever, they have no intention of doing so in 2018.