Dan Patrick’s big week: Endangering his own voters’ ballots, threatening UT on race theory
Former talk-radio showman Dan Patrick now runs the state of Texas.
And he is definitely not going to let us forget it.
In the latest episode of “As the Dan Turns,” the state’s seven-year lieutenant governor dominated Texas politics last week, even though he doesn’t face a strong opponent either in the March Republican primary or the fall election.
In other words, Patrick is off the chain. He’s free to do whatever he wants, or whatever Florida Republican Donald J. Trump wants as Trump’s No. 1 ally, loyalty enforcer and fixer in Texas.
Patrick’s long-running show took three plot twists last week:
▪ His campaign sent older voters across the state unsolicited vote-by-mail applications and told them to mail in their votes and “crush Democrats.”
Sending unsolicited vote-by-mail applications is now a felony crime for county workers, but hunky-dory for elected officials.
But there was a catch: The applications were marked with the wrong return address.
So applicants mailed the forms to the secretary of state’s office in Austin instead of to county election offices as required.
Yet the secretary of state’s webpage said specifically that applications sent there “will be rejected.”
Naturally, that’s been fixed the Texas way: The secretary of state’s office, led by John B. Scott of Fort Worth, simply deleted that line from the webpage.
The applications were forwarded, but Friday was the deadline for corrections.
If you mailed in Patrick’s ballot application, better not wait.
Go vote in person any day this week except Monday (it’s a holiday), or March 1.
▪ Patrick threatened state universities with eliminating faculty tenure statewide if professors continue to include lessons on critical race theory, the graduate-level scholarly discussion of how and whether race plays a role in law, government, justice and society.
Using language not heard in Texas since Gov. “Pa” Ferguson said, “I do not care a damn what happens to the University [of Texas]. The bats and owls can roost in it for all I care,” Patrick said professors who cover race theory in lessons are “a bunch of socialist, leftist, Marxist liberals [who] poison the minds of our young men and women.”
In a telling Patrick comment, he told KSKY/660 AM talk host Mark Davis: “We believe in academic freedom, but you don’t get to just teach anything you want.”
(If you’re wondering, Patrick is a graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Also, Ferguson was impeached.)
▪ Patrick lashed out at the Austin-based nonprofit Texas Tribune website for reporting that Patrick wanted former Gov. Rick Perry to challenge incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott.
Patrick said he only asked Perry last summer to run if Abbott didn’t.
However, Abbott consistently said he would run.
The Tribune also reported that Patrick did not deny urging Trump to publish comments bashing House Speaker Dade Phelan.
Patrick does not deny any of this.
Yet he described the Tribune report as “liberal trash,” “the media trying to stir the pot” and “trash attacking Republicans.”
Even though he’s the one dividing Republicans.
It’s as if he’s still doing a talk show.
This story was originally published February 18, 2022 at 11:54 AM.
