Friedman gets serious with political stands
Political reform is gubernatorial candidate's first target
10:35 PM CDT on Monday, June 5, 2006
By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Yes, he's serious.
In an effort to prove he's not just another cigar-chomping, joke-telling pretty face, independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman unveiled an agenda for political reforms Monday.
"It's time to clean house," Mr. Friedman said. "How much worse does it have to get?"
As usual, Mr. Friedman's news conference was a running, stand-up riff on whatever questions were tossed his way.
But for the first time, his handlers tried to steer questions toward Mr. Friedman's point of the day: Texas needs to reduce special-interest political influence and make elections more accessible for voters and independent candidates.
Meat-and-potatoes on issues were a natural next course, his staff said, now that the petitions needed for Mr. Friedman to get on the ballot have been filed for review by the secretary of state.
"Everyone wanted to know if Kinky was going to get serious, and we said 'Yes,' " said campaign spokeswoman Laura Stromberg. "We weren't going to spend time and resources coming up with political proposals when we weren't even assured a spot on the ballot."
The political reform agenda announced Monday was the first of five planned policy anchors, each of which will be announced after a political event of some sort: renewable energy strategies, to be unveiled after a tour of polluted sites and alternative energy production facilities next month; after that, a statement on immigration, capping a tour of the Texas-Mexico border; education and health care, an expansion of the positions Mr. Friedman has already outlined on his Web site, with no events scheduled yet.
The political reform area came first, because it hit close to the campaign, which has protested the difficulty of getting on the ballot, Ms. Stromberg said.
"This is kind of our beginning," she said. "If Kinky's going to be governor, he's going to make sure that independents down the line won't have to deal with the obstacles that he has."
The most unconventional of Mr. Friedman's proposals involves the very method he used to get on the ballot. Under current rules, anybody who votes in a party primary is ineligible to sign an independent's petition to run for office.
Mr. Friedman, though, would allow independents onto the primary ballots of each political party. Any votes would count toward the signature requirement.
Other proposals are already in place in some states, including initiative and referendum, the process that allows residents the right to petition and get issues on a statewide ballot; same-day voter registration, which would eliminate a 30-day advance registration before elections; public financing of political campaigns for candidates who agree to spending limits and reject private contributions; and the drawing of political districts by an entity other than the Legislature.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell issued a press release saying the Friedman proposals ignored large problems in state ethics laws, including the ability for candidates to accept unlimited campaign contributions.
Gov. Rick Perry's campaign predicted that after establishing himself as a singer, fiction writer and black-hatted quipster, Mr. Friedman won't be able to pull off the role of serious candidate.
Said Robert Black, a spokesman for the Republican: "Kinky Friedman has spent the last many months traveling around the state, giving out funny one-liners, mystery novels and bobble-head dolls, and now he expects Texans to take him as a serious candidate for governor? That in itself may be the biggest joke of all."
E-mail pslover@dallasnews.com
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/060606dntexkinky.126e4d37.html
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Straight from the Horses Mouth.....
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