"Lone Star Rising"
Category: Politics...
Posted Thursday, April 14, 2005 at 08:57 PM [GMT-6]

Aaron Peña is a Democratic Representative (District 40, in South Texas) in the Texas House of Representatives. He also has a blog titled "A Capitol Blog," where he posts as "The Rep." According to this website, he's the only Texas legislator to have a blog. Good for him, I say.

Apparently feeling a little lonely, he's enlisted some fellow legislators to participate in a new group blog, started April 10, called "Lone Star Rising." Rep. Peña describes the new blog in these humble terms: "Political discussion and commentary by leaders of the great state of Texas."

One might infer from that description that this will be a fine forum for non-partisan discussion of issues facing the state legislature. One would also apparently be wrong, based on the contributions to date.

Let's recap the posters thus far, shall we?

• REP. JOE DESHOTEL - Democrat (Dist. 22, Port Arthur)


• REP. VERONICA GONZALES - Democrat (Dist. 35, Alice)


• REP. RAFAEL ANCHIA - Democrat (Dist. 103, Dallas)


• REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO - Democrat (Dist. 125, San Antonio)

Are we sensing a trend here?

All posts are being uploaded under Rep. Peña's name, presumably because the others don't know how to do it themselves.

Most of the posts thus far have a decidely partisan tone to them, and judging by their quality, I don't expect Lone Star Rising to appear on many Texas blogrolls anytime soon. It's unfortunate that something that could have been used for some non-partisan perspectives on the state legislative process is apparently going to be used simply for the benefit of one party, without even disclosing that strategy to visitors. And, after all, it's not like we don't have enough other less-than-expertly crafted, obviously partisan blogs to choose from.

OK, I'll admit that I don't know if Rep. Peña has attempted to recruit Republican legislators to participate in Lone Star Rising. Maybe he has, and they've declined. If that's the case, I apologize to Rep. Peña...although I still think he needs to label the posters with their party affiliation, in the interest of full disclosure.

Tip o'the Stetson to gritsforbreakfast, posting at Texas Bloggers.

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