Republican Bullys: Not limited to the Texas Panhandle !

Back on the Texas Ballot: GOP should get out of the bullying business
Dallas Morning News Editorial
07:01 AM CST on Friday, January 13, 2006

The Supreme Court of Texas nailed the state Republican Party on some ballot chicanery yesterday involving a state House district in the Panhandle.
Two reasons people as far away as Dallas should care: (1) GOP leaders got caught meddling in a local election, and (2) the court has revived the candidacy of an education-friendly challenger to the status quo.
A few days ago, party officials did seven-term Rep. David Swinford a big favor by knocking his opponent off the ballot. That opponent, longtime Amarillo school board member Anette Carlisle, had joined a statewide slate of education-friendly candidates out to shake the House leadership's stubborn resistance to giving public schools a big boost in funding. Her campaign against Mr. Swinford, one of House Speaker Tom Craddick's lieutenants, was a challenge as well to one of the most powerful Republicans in Texas.
Perhaps that was why the state GOP tried to use a bizarre interpretation of the Texas Constitution to jettison Ms. Carlisle. The official rationale was the state's ban on legislative service for those already holding "lucrative office." Strange, but Ms. Carlisle's service on the school board is not rewarded with pay. Her board's reimbursement of travel expenses is hardly lucrative in any common-sense interpretation, an argument the Supreme Court apparently bought in ordering Ms. Carlisle back on the ballot yesterday.
Republicans statewide might wonder why leaders, in their pro-Swinford ruling, apparently abandoned their traditional neutrality in intramural primary face-offs. Party members also might wonder why at least seven other school board members remained on the primary ballot. (Two of those, incidentally, are targeting incumbents who angered Mr. Craddick by refusing to hew the party line on a crucial education vote last year.)
The ballot shenanigans should concern any party member who thinks the GOP has no business trying to prevent voters from deciding between candidates' competing philosophies.
The Supreme Court ruling keeps alive a candidacy that could amount to a referendum on the House's hard line against compromise with the Senate on badly needed new money for schools. The attempted power play against the challenge is proof of the stakes involved.
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-swinford_13edi.ART.State.Edition1.1db5e35e.html