I'm not saying he's a yellow dog Democrat and that he's never sinned. You have to remember his district. In any case I'm going to quote Andrew Dobbs from Burnt Orange on Laney's role when he was speaker of the House.
CHIP would not exist at all in Texas without Pete Laney and Glen Maxey, among others. CHIP is a state/federal partnership--if a state chooses not to fund the program it doesn't exist there. Bush was running for president when CHIP was created and didn't want to deal with the flack he would in the GOP primaries for funding a big new social welfare program. His plan was to quietly not create the program.
Pete Laney refused to go along and Glen Maxey took the lead in getting the bill passed and funded. Thanks to their leadership the pressure was too great on the Senate and Bush to let the bill fail. Pete Laney did the right thing.
Laney is "conservative" because he had to be to represent his district, but he made sure to put solid liberals in positions of influence to keep bad bills off the books. He put Steve Wolens as chairman of the Calendars Committee to block some of the most right wing legislation, for example. He also kept the GOP out of the majority in the House for 6 or 8 years through his Texas Partnership.
We can't write everyone off in our party that sins. I bet if you asked Laney now, about bu$h he would admit his mistake. But you got your wish anyway. He's going. And with that district it's certainly going to be hard to get a Democrat elected.
Sonia
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