CAPITOL LETTERS

Didn’t Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, stick with House Speaker Tom Craddick during the speaker’s race, in spite of rumors to the contrary (not to mention an election that left his political life flashing before his eyes, in a disrict that's just BARELY Republican)?

Then what gives with the transportation moratorium legislation? Krusee’s gotta be frustrated today. A transportation bill that somehow landed in a committee that wasn’t Krusee’s is now the vehicle for a two-year tollway moratorium amendment pushed by rural Rep. Lois Kolkhorst. Krusee is fighting hard against it, trying twice to kill it on points of order.

He knows he can’t get it voted down, since the thing has 111 co-sponsors, seriously. But that’s three times – count ‘em three – that Krusee has been slapped on this. One, when this legislation regarding tollways (and hence, amenable to a tollway amendment) didn’t go to his committee for him to bottle up (where the actual moratorium bill sits languishing). Two, when he tried to kill the bill on a point of order today. And three, when he tried to kill the amendment on a point of order.

Krusee, if you’ll recall, is one of Craddick’s all-time favorite golden boys, even helping coordinate the feds’ search for the House Dems with FAA planes when they went to Ardmore in 2003. He caught some flak for that.

It's hard to say whether Krusee’s getting punished, or if he's just not being helped out by the Speaker - and when you throw in your lot with the speaker and risk support elsewhere, you really kind of expect a little help. Is there a falling-out in the works?

p.s. Great quote from Vicki Truitt, a Southlake Republican, regarding Kolkhorst’s attempt to squash an amendment letting North Texas toll projects move forward:
“There might be clean air and happy cows in Brenham, but in DFW it’s a different deal.”

That’s almost exactly what she said. The clean air and happy cows part was dead on. For the rest I’m relying on memory.