Sadler, 57, a father of five who served in the Texas House from 1991 to 2003, is an East Texas Democrat from the classic mold – a populist with common sense and a keen understanding of budgets, as well as a knack for honest deal-making, looking out for the interests of working Texans and understanding the importance of keeping government spending in line with revenues.

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And Republicans throughout the political universe are wondering whether Mitt Romney is ready.

As the Obama campaign this week began a concerted attack on the presumptive GOP nominee for his tenure at the private equity firm he managed, strategists in both parties say the Republican has yet to give a confident, detailed explanation of his Bain Capital tenure that silences questions about his biography as a businessman. So far in 2012, Romney — who is centering his presidential campaign on economic leadership — has rarely if ever managed to speak about Bain in any but the most defensive of terms.

It means they don’t oppose — financially or otherwise — any officeholders who haven’t given them good reason. It’s why you rarely see the institutional political action committees lining up against current members of the Legislature or other officeholders who are seeking re-election.

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You’ve probably received your yellow voter registration card by now, and that means you have received official notice of your Congressional district. Our long-awaited Democratic Primary is May 29^th, but the all-important Early Voting is now through May 25^th.

I’m sure you know how hard Travis County was hit by redistricting. Instead of three districts, with Congressman Lloyd Doggett’s CD 25 anchored in Austin, we have five districts, with Doggett now running in the new CD 35 that stretches between Austin and San Antonio. The other four districts favor Republicans and stretch far away from our Capital City.

But remember: We Are Divided, Not Conquered! Please join the TCDP, Congressman Doggett, County Attorney David Escamilla, Rep. Eddie Rodriguez  and other Democratic elected officials at 9 a.m. Saturday at Estrada’s Cleaners for our Early Vote Rally.

I hope you will help Austin and Travis County stand firm in our desire to preserve our progressive Democratic representation in Washington. We believe the courts will fix this extreme and illegal redistricting, but not in time for the 2012 elections. So let’s make sure that we keep Austin’s voice strong in Congress by keeping Doggett in D.C.

I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is that we turn out our Democratic Primary voters during Early Voting. Why? Because the delayed Primary is the day after Memorial Day, and lots of people will leave town on vacation. The sooner we can get our voters to the polls, the better off we will be. Here is a link to early voting locations. Vote early and tell your Democratic friends and family to do the same!

Finally, our 2012 Trio of Stars Brunch is Saturday (May 19), and we still have some tickets left. Click here. We will honor Wilhelmina Delco, Celia Israel and Carrin Patman (read her profile in today’s “On the Record with Diane Holloway”) — a stellar group for a stellar event! Please join us.

A special thank you to our Trio of Stars Sponsors: Austin Central Labor Council * Luci Baines Johnson * Aimee Boone * Capital Area Democratic Women * Amy Clark Meachum * Jim Coronado * Adrienne Donato * Sarah Eckhardt * Bruce Elfant * Lulu Flores * Carol Fredericks * Sarah Goodfriend * Emma Lou Linn * John Lipscombe * Bonnie Mills * Janis Pinnelli * Beverly Reeves * David Reiter * Karen Sage * and Jan Soifer.

There is still time to become a sponsor! Contact Laura at (512) 477-7500 for more details.

Sincerely,

Andy Brown

Travis County Democratic Party Chair

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Soft-spoken, delicate and impeccably mannered, Carrin Patman may not seem like a steely warrior for Texas Democrats, but that’s exactly what she has been for more than half a century.

“You either have to beat ‘em or outlast ‘em, and I’m very, very persistent,” Patman said with an impish smile in the kitchen of her West Austin home. “That has always made the difference in my success.”

Sifting through newspaper clippings and old photos, Patman lights up when she talks about the fight she led (my words, not hers) to do away with Texas’ winner-take-all presidential primary and establish reforms that led to opening doors for women and minorities. That fight took her from Texas, where she battled former TDP Chairman Roy Orr, to the 1976 Democratic National Convention, where she was one of five speakers chosen to make the case for proportional representation on national TV before 5,000 delegates.

“Winner-take-all was really an abusive process,” Patman said. “It was not representative of the grassroots of the party, and I’m a big believer in the grassroots. Surely there is no principle more basic to the Democratic Party than the equal right of all Democrats to have their voices heard in fair proportion, from the lowest to the highest levels of our presidential nominating process.”

Carrin on NBC, 1976 Convention

Talking with Patman, you half-expect cheers to erupt from an audience as she fires up memories of that battle. And it was one of many. She also lobbied a bill requiring both the Democratic and Republican parties in Texas to write down and distribute their rules — something that had never been done before. She was pushing for inclusiveness and transparency years before it was fashionable.

People who think of Patman primarily as the wife of the late State Senator and U.S. Congressman Bill Patman should brush up on their political history. Carrin Patman served on the State Democratic Executive Committee for 20 years and was elected the Democratic National Committeewoman for Texas in 1969. And she began her political journey long before she was married. Born in Houston, her father, Fred Mauritz (the son of Swedish immigrants), served in the Texas House and Senate. She recalls campaigning door-to-door for him in Ganado when she was only 9 years old — and she recalls loving it.

As a student at the University of Texas many years later, she met Bill Patman, a law student, on the banks of Barton Springs. They were married in 1953, had their daughter Carrin Foreman Patman (also a UT Law grad and now a prominent lawyer in Houston) and moved back to Ganado to farm and ranch. In 1960, Bill, who passed away in 2008, ran for the Texas Senate, and Carrin managed his campaign — as she would continue to do through his 20 years in the Legislature and two subsequent terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Besides running his campaigns, she also ran his office, wrote his press releases and served as surrogate speaker from time to time.

“I just loved the people in our little country towns,” Patman said. “It was such a privilege to experience what rural Texas was like. And we left no stone unturned. We talked to everybody!”

In 1979, Patman urged her husband and eleven other liberal Democratic Texas Senators to break quorum during the legislative session to block a vote on a presidential primary bill that was rigged to help Republican John Connally. For those who do not remember, those dozen Senators were called “The Killer Bees,” and nine of them hid out in a tiny one-bedroom, one bathroom garage apartment in West Austin. The other three secretly fled town.

“Bill said that was the one of the worst experience of his life,” Patman said chuckling. “He was holed up in a one-bedroom apartment for five days with all those other men, and some of them drank, some of them smoked and some of them snored! But the bill was dropped, so they won.”

After the Patmans left political office in 1985, Carrin taught aerobics and continued her behind-the-scenes party involvement. Although she says she mostly just writes checks now, she is a familiar face at fundraisers and forums and never misses the chance to vote. Not surprisingly, she finds the political climate in Republican-dominated Texas to be off-putting.

Nancy Pelosi and Patman

“It’s bad, isn’t it? So much hatred,” she said. “I’m just amazed at Rick Perry.”

Patman blames today’s mean-spirited partisanship on redistricting. Her husband was shifted from district to district during his tenure, and she believes the latest round of map-drawing was extreme.

“It makes people who are elected more one-sided and ‘unbudgeable,’ if that’s a word,” she said. “It’s all about crushing the opposition, getting elected and promoting this conservative agenda. It’s not about getting things done for the people of Texas. I think we need to take redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature and let the courts and judges do it. We just keep fighting these fights over and over.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Patman said she never considered running for office herself.

“I always had a great candidate to support, and I really preferred to be behind the scenes,” she said. “I felt more effective there.”

(contact: diane@traviscountydemocrats.org)

By Amy Gardner, Published: May 13

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Obama is set to visit a family in Reno, Nev., that took advantage of the first of his We Can’t Wait initiatives he announced last fall, and to highlight data showing refinancing increasing by 50 percent nationwide and even more dramatically in Nevada, where applications are up 240 percent since October.

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“I’ve stood on the side of broader equality for the LGBT community. I hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient,” Obama said in a White House interview with ABC News’s Robin Roberts. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word ‘marriage’ evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.”

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As I go around the country and see various Democrats and talk to them on the phone, honestly I’m beginning to think that we have become the party of Jimmie Davis.

My message is simple: WTFU. Translated — wake the you-know-what up, there is an earthquake.

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In the response, Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office said it is not relenting in its defense. Instead, it alleges that the department, not the state, is responsible for dragging out the proceedings by requesting millions of documents that have “nothing to do” with the case. It also said the department itself has twice extended the deadline to preclear or block the bill. Below is the statement from Jerry Strickland, Abbott’s communications director.

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