Dan Patrick Rebuked By Tea Party Over Dewhurst Endorsement

Today Dan Patrick, founder of the Tea Party Caucus in the Senate,  endorsed Lt. Governor David Dewhurst for the US Senate race.  It’s not a surprise that Dan Patrick has been secretly supporting Dewhurst.  Reports from Austin and Houston claim that Dan Patrick has been strong arming other Texas congressmen for weeks for Dewhurst. 

The petulant and unbalanced Dan Patrick interview of Ted Cruz, and the Dewhurst campaign’s dishonest, NBC-like editing in still another attack ad, have left voters furious.   Voters across Texas have been calling the Dewhurst campaign to express their displeasure and one Tea Party activist in Houston told PolitiJim that although they voted for him for Lt. Governor, they were contacting the campaign to tell them the gross distortion by his campaign has permanently cut off all support for him in this race and the future.  One voter (video embedded) who actually went and listened to the entire show after hearing the ad, was incensed that both Dan Patrick and Dewhurst were falsely slandering Ted Cruz.

Finally, Dan Patrick makes public what he has already been doing (and what he lied to Ted Cruz he was doing on that very radio show) and formally endorsed the Lt. Governor.  Despite attempts by the Dewhurst campaign to insinuate that Dan Patrick’s endorsement was significant of the sentiments of the grassroots, Tea Party leaders were QUICK to counter that assumption.  From the Austin American Statesman:

“The Dewhurst campaign today seizing on Patrick’s endorsement as some kind of TEA Party prize is premature and nothing but desperate spin.  When Senator Dan Patrick calls Lt. Governor David Dewhurst ‘conservative’ in his endorsement of Dewhurst for US Senate, Dan Patrick does not speak for us!”

The full PDF press release is here.  And it is even stronger:

JoAnn Fleming, chair of the advisory committee to the Texas Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus today made it clear that Senator Dan Patrick does not speak for the TEA Party Caucus Advisory
Committee.

Fleming stated, “While Senator Patrick is indeed the founder and leader of the Texas Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, I want to make it very clear, in the strongest terms, that Senator Patrick in no way speaks for the Advisory Committee to the TEA Party Caucus.

Maria Martinez, Executive Director of Immigration Reform Coalition of Texas -- IRCOT, explains how immigration reform died under the leadership of David Dewhurst.  She recounts personal slights she from the Lt. Governor to address serious immigration reform and the bombshell:

In the last legislative session,David Dewhurst did not go out of his way to pass EVEN ONE of the 60+ bills that were filed on illegal immigration.

Dewhurst was most recently embarrassed by revelations that not only did he support full amnesty for illegals in a speech given in 2007, but that he directed state employees to hide the speech on taxpayer funded, public websites when the issue came to light. 

Breitbart.com, and most major national conservative blogs have condemned Dewhurst for his scurrilous and dishonest accusations against Ted Cruz on illegal immigration.

Special thanks and hat tip to Donna Garner and Katrina Pierson

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More of the Texas Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus press release:

While I will not speak for individual members of the Advisory Committee, I can assure Senator Patrick that
the Advisory Committee is not pleased with the following facts regarding Dewhurst’s track record:

1. On Lt. Governor David Dewhurst’s watch, Texas taxpayers continue to suffer the high cost of illegal aliens to the state of Texas. The red ink coming in 2013 is in part due to the lack of courage and will to do anything about the burden those illegally here place upon an already strained social services safety net. We were in Austin last session and know that Lt. Governor David Dewhurst did nothing to try to curb illegal aliens' access to social services, while the budget was being cut for
   citizens and legal residents! He did not support E-verify, limiting social services access to citizens and legal residents, nor even tracking and counting the cost of illegal aliens to the state budget.
   
2. On Lt. Governor David Dewhurst’s watch, the bill, which would have repealed in-state tuition for children of illegal aliens, was held up in committee because Dewhurst continues to appoint liberal Republicans and Democrats in key committee chair positions to keep conservative legislation off the floor for debate.
   
3. Over the many years he has served in office, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has ignored the continued national security risk of sanctuary cities or de facto “hide outs” in Texas. Dewhurst has never, ever championed ending sanctuary cities, but rather gives it lip service when he’s running for office.
   
4. State Spending is rising! Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and other members
   of the Senate ignore the fact that state spending (all funds) rose 310% between 1990 and 2012, while population growth plus inflation totaled only 132%. The State of Texas has a growing dependency on federal funds.
   [Source: Texas Public Policy Foundation and Conservative Budget Coalition]. In spite of our calls to end crony capitalism -- taxpayer dollar handouts to special interests – Dewhurst passed a budget that included $25 million in funding for a Formula One racetrack in Austin and handouts to the likes of Apple, Facebook, Frito-Lay, and Country-wide Financial/Bank of America, just to name a few! [Source: Governor Perry’s website: Texas Enterprise Fund, updated April 30, 2012]
   
5. On Dewhurst’s watch, the state balanced its budget in part with accounting gimmicks and deferrals.  It is a fact (see Legislative Budget Board documents and Comptroller reports) that the legislature purposefully underfunded Medicaid caseload growth by approximately $4.8 billion and used an accounting sleight of hand to defer $2.3 billion to the Foundation School Program (enrollment growth). Dewhurst also approved a budget that diverted millions of dollars from the intended use (red light fines to trauma centers, for example) to help balance the budget.
   
6. When given a chance to join State Representative David Simpson and Senator Patrick in taking a real stand against the overreaching federal government in support of the Anti-groping TSA bill, David Dewhurst squandered an opportunity by caving to the federal government and thus killing the bill.

Fleming said, “Given these facts, here’s why a majority of the TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee wants to make it clear that Senator Dan Patrick does not speak for us in this US Senate race when he calls Dewhurst “conservative”:

Posted in: 2012,campaign,David Dewhurst,election,politics,Ted Cruz,texas