You might have heard that Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis's (D-Fort Worth) office was bombed yesterday.
Yes, bombed. You read that correctly.
For those who don't know, Ms. Davis represents a district that can best be described as a swing district. Maybe even a Republican district. John McCain and Rick Perry both picked up 52 percent of the vote in her district, so Ms. Davis obviously needs to pick up some Republican (or at least independent) votes to win reelection. And naturally, she's one of the top Republican targets in the 2012 election. (*In Texas, state Senators are normally up for reelection every four years, but all state Senate seats are up for election in the cycle following each decade's redistricting.)
But it would be a mistake to think that Sen. Davis is some sort of conservaDem. In spite of her rather unfriendly district, Ms. Davis is quite the progressive. She stands up for women's reproductive rights, including Planned Parenthood, in the face of an assault by white men from Texas. Republicans tried to make her Senate district even redder in redistricting. Remember, Texas Republicans absolutely hate white Democrats -- it destroys their main selling point, that they're the party of white people and Democrats are the party of everybody else. (Playing with fire when "everybody else" is the majority in this state...)
And Sen. Davis had already become local Republicans' whipping, uh, girl. After all, in a recent Republican debate, local candidates threw her name out there when they needed a convenient "look who my opponent agrees with!"
So what were they so angry with her about?
Sen. Davis thought that state highways should be financed with taxes instead of the current system, in which new highways are built and maintained by private companies run by Rick Perry's cronies, and given license by the state of Texas to charge tolls. The audacity!
And Sen. Davis thinks we should be spending more money on, get this, public education. That bitch!
It's no wonder that Texas ranks 49th in funding for public education. Our state legislature is filled with conservative white guys who think that spending money on public education is a terrible thing, and the Wendy Davises get redistricted out of their seats and have their offices firebombed.
We need more, not less, of Wendy Davis. Unfortunately, the people of our state don't see it that way.
Maybe that's because we're 49th in public education?