I’ve been invited to take part in Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) Issues Advisory Council. Specifically the Veterans Issues Advisory Council. From the Welcome email:

As an Issues Advisory Council member, you will be asked to give me input from time to time on the most important issues facing our great state.

I will be hosting my inaugural Issues Advisory Council conference call at 7:30 pm on April 29th to talk issues and solutions and formally kick-off the Council and I would like to personally invite you to join me.

I’m looking forward to talking to my favorite Senator this evening (yeah. that’s a back-handed stab at earmark-loving Kay Baily-Hutchinson).

I’ll have more after this evening’s conference call in a few minutes.

_______

UPDATE

So. That was interesting.

Interesting like listening to a really bad talk radio program about local issues that you have absolutely no idea what anybody is talking about. Where the callers just ramble, and ramble, and ramble without ever really making a point and never get around to asking an actual question. And to compound the problem, the host is much too polite to cut them off or hang up on them.

Yeah. It was interesting like that.

Sen. Cornyn gave a quick introduction as to the purpose of the Issues Advisory Counci, which is to ask for advice on issues that confront Texas and the nation, and to get our help to solicit additional feedback from our communities.

Then he opened it up for questions. And over the next half hour, only 4 people had the opportunity to ask questions. Except that none of them actually asked the Senator a question. Instead all four of them (to include a precinct chairman from San Antonio and another one from Brownsville) just rambled on and on in an incoherent manner — never actually getting around to a question.

Frankly, I was quite impressed that Sen. Cornyn was able to pick a few words out of their meandering ramblings to state his stance a particular issue (Second Amendment, he’s strongly in favor of it).

If this had been a talk radio show, the host would have hung up on each and every one of them.

In his introduction, Sen. Cornyn believes that we should “keep the government small and taxes lower.”

The Brownsville precinct chairman had mumbled something about using federal grants for local water projects, which Senator Cornyn used as an opportunity to discuss earmark transparency and reform.

If I had been able to ask the Sen. a question, it would have been this one:

Speaking of earmarks, Sen. Cornyn : On March 13, Sen. Jim Demint (R-SC) introduced an amendment to establish a moratorium on earmarks. Sen. Kay Baily-Hutchinson voted against it. She believes that she has a “Constitutional obligation to the voters of Texas” to bring home earmarks.

As you noted earlier, you are one of only 29 Senators who voted for it.

The Club for Growth has compiled a list of Congressman and Senators who have personally decided to stop receiving pork projects, if only temporarily, while they fight for reform.

To date, only 7 Senators have made this pledge. Neither you nor Sen. Hutchinson are amongst them.

At the beginning of the conference call, you mentioned “smaller government and lower taxes.”

Why did you not also make the same self-imposed moritorium on pork if you do indeed believe in smaller government and lower taxes? Or do you agree with Sen. Hutchinson’s “Constitutional obligation” answer?

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 | Trackback |