Sunday, January 09, 2005

Singing the red state blues

Mynor Rodriguez appears to be feeling a little cynical these days, but he's got a new blog -- The Red State: Living Liberal and Progressive in a Red State -- to air his grievances. Recent posts clue us in on the latest crop of bad bills at the Texas Legislature. Another early piece looks at the insiders and special interests behind HB 2292, a massive re-organization of the state health and human services system which passed in the 78th Texas legislative session in 2003. That bill collapsed Texas' health and human service agencies into one huge mega-bureaucracy, while reducing the number of personnel dedicated to oversight and fraud enforcement. The backstory, though, Mynor tells us, citing Houston Chronicle reports, involved funneling patronage money and key appointments to important political fundraisers. Mynor is a former staffer for the House Human Services committee, so he brings a lot of background to the topics he's covering. Check it out, and look for him regularly linked under "Friends" on the blogroll.

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