Find out the TRUTH about Strayhorn’s prior support of toll roads here. Also, read her Op-Ed laying out her transportation plan here.

Strayhorn’s done more than just make promises. She’s already taken action:

• As one of three members of the Texas Bond Review Board, Strayhorn fought and was successful in keeping Perry’s TxDOT from using our gas tax dollars as BLACKMAIL. She kept them from holding some of our gas tax funds (Texas Mobility Funds) hostage to build only toll roads instead of free roads (one of Perry’s sources of our tax dollars that’s being diverted to toll roads).

• As TEXAS COMPTROLLER Carole Strayhorn’s produced a Special Report into one of Gov. Rick Perry’s new bureaucratic Freeway Tolling Authorities (CTRMA) and found CORRUPT board members giving themselves and their friends NO BID contracts using our gas tax dollars. The Report described these activities as: “Double Taxation without Accountability” and “Favoritism and Self-Enrichment”

• Strayhorn is spending millions of her advertising dollars to tell other Texans about the Boondoggles we’ve been fighting: — the privatization and tolling of our funded freeways and the TTC land grab.

• Strayhorn is pushing for I & R which would give the people means to influence and control large statewide issues.

Strayhorn is the only candidate with a common sense TTC alternative that will:

• PROTECT our private land.
• Stop secret deals.
• Stop land grab for foreign profits.
• Keep our roads Toll Free.

Strayhorn offers much more than one liners. She’s the ONLY candidate who went to the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) public hearings…more than a dozen. The other candidates? Didn’t go to a single hearing. If they cared a stitch about the people, are truly AGAINST the TTC, and want to hear the people’s voice, they would have shown up. Strayhorn is the ONLY candidate that has the needed millions to defeat Gov. “Special Interests” Perry. Any vote going to the third, fourth or fifth place candidate ensures Perry another term.

Link to article here.

For more than a year, all we the PEOPLE have heard is how UNTOUCHABLE Perry is, that there’s NO WAY anyone can beat him, and that we’re all just wasting our time. Gloat no more, tollers, because for the first time, Perry is within striking distance, and with the PEOPLES’ help in crossing the finish line, he’s on his way OUT OF OFFICE for good. Of course, Perry’s spin doctors are running from the truth and trying to paint a rosey picture, but we the grassroots know where he stands…and he’s about to get a ONE WAY ticket home from Austin!

The professor cited in the article says he doesn’t think Perry is that low because nothing happened to cause a drop….wanna bet? It’s called…the Trans Texas Corridor Hearings and Strayhorn attended more than a dozen of them, and she had people on their feet in standing ovations only two lines into her speech!

Zogby’s polling is clearly problematic, but Rasmussen, who was the most accurate pollster in the last presidential election shows Perry under 35% and Strayhorn in second…and that’s BEFORE her ad campaign began. The other candidates don’t have the money to come close to rival the top two candidates’ ad campaigns (Perry $10 million, Strayhorn $8 million, Bell & Kinky less than $1 million each), which is by far the most influential medium to reach voters.

This is a two person race, and once Texans see it comes down to Strayhorn or another 4 damaging years of Perry, she’ll galvanize the more than 60% of voters already against Perry and become our next Governor. More good news, THREE transportation commissioners’ terms will be up as of next March, including Chair Ric Williamson. So Strayhorn will be able to install a majority on the commission immediately and turn this train around!

Polls find Perry loss isn’t out of the question
But governor’s spokesman says methodology used in surveys makes them unreliable
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Houston Chronicle
Sept. 12, 2006

AUSTIN — Two polls released Monday found Gov. Rick Perry is vulnerable to defeat, but his campaign is questioning the surveys’ accuracy.

Conventional wisdom in the governor’s race has been that none of the governor’s four opponents would have a chance to beat him if he gets more than 35 percent of the vote on Nov. 7. There is no runoff in the general election, so the top vote-getter wins.

Perry has hovered between 35 percent and 41 percent in public polls for months. But he has fallen into the defeatable zone in polls done by Rasmussen Reports and the Wall Street Journal/Zogby Online.

The Rasmussen poll put Perry’s re-election support at 33 percent, and the Zogby poll had his support at 31 percent.

“It’s hard to see him losing above 37 percent, but below 35 percent, somebody might get that much out of the remaining 65 percent of the vote,” said University of Houston pollster Richard Murray, a Democrat.

But Perry spokesman Robert Black said the polls paid for by news media companies should not be trusted because their methodology is not sound political science.

“All these media polls that promote the pollster should be taken with a grain of salt,” said Black. “If the campaigns, all the campaigns in this race for governor, thought these polls were worth a darn, they wouldn’t have their own pollsters.”

The polls differed on the challengers to Perry. Rasmussen had independent Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn in second place at 22 percent; Democrat Chris Bell in third place at 18 percent; and independent Kinky Friedman in fourth at 16 percent.

Zogby had Bell in second with 25 percent; Friedman at 22 percent, Strayhorn at 11 percent and Libertarian James Werner at 2.6 percent.

Both polls were conducted days before Perry and Strayhorn began their television advertising last week.

Black said the two polls do not accurately reflect the voting public in Texas. He said Rasmussen uses automated polling methods, while Zogby uses a pool of people who volunteer to be interviewed on an Internet site.

Surveys questioned

Mark Sanders, a spokesman for Strayhorn, touted the results of the Rasmussen poll while challenging the methodology of Zogby.”Zogby has always been wildly off when it comes to her (Strayhorn),” Sanders said. “The only polls we trust are the ones we take, and they show us in second place.”

Bell spokeswoman Heather Guntert said the campaign is not going to be one that “lives or dies” by any poll, but she said Zogby showed growing strength for Bell. She said that also is reflected in a $250,000 donation the campaign received from trial lawyer Harold Nix.

Murray said there are reasons to believe the Rasmussen and Zogby polls are credible and reasons to question their accuracy.

Murray said polls done with robotic interviewers such as those conducted by Rasmussen and SurveyUSA are considered to be “cheap, quick and dirty.” But he said they do so much polling that inaccuracies tend to level out over time. He said the hard thing for those polls to reflect is whether they are accurately sampling people who will actually vote.

Murray said Zogby’s polling methods called elections very accurately in 2000, but less so in 2004.

May not mean much

Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin and a founder of Pollster.com, said the biggest problem with Internet-based polling like Zogby’s is that the people who sign up to be surveyed are very interested in politics.Even if Zogby weights the population of the poll sample to reflect the population of the state, Franklin said a political survey of volunteers is likely one of people who already had strong feelings about politics and the candidates.

Franklin said there can be variability in any poll. So Perry’s drop may not mean much, especially if nothing happened to cause it, he said.

“Perry’s movement right now isn’t large enough for me to be convinced that Perry has dropped significantly,” Franklin said.

Friedman not worried

The one campaign not worried by the polls is that of Friedman, who is building his campaign like the one used by former wrestler Jesse Ventura to win the governorship in Minnesota.

“Jesse Ventura had 11 to 15 percent in the polls at this point in the campaign. He didn’t break 20 percent until the weekend before the election,” said Friedman spokeswoman Laura Stromberg. “This is great news.”

Link to article here. Pro-tollers will declare until they’re blue in the face they’re NOT tolling existing roads, but we’ve got TxDOT ON CAMERA admitting what we drive on today on 281 WILL become a toll road. The NEW lanes will be frontage road and the only NON-TOLL option, which isn’t an option (since it’s not a highway). Now, the transportation reporter for the Statesman who has followed this issue VERY closely for several years, admits that, yes, TxDOT is TOLLING (hence DOUBLE TAXING) EXISTING FREEWAYS!

Different shades of ‘greenfield’ tollways
By Ben Wear
Austin American Statesman
September 11, 2006

With three Central Texas toll roads opening later this fall, and one more in the spring, it may be time to correct a misimpression about those roads. One that I inadvertently helped foster.

The common refrain from toll road supporters is that these roads are “greenfield” roads cutting through the “frontier,” thus rendering them “traditional” toll roads. Unlike those Phase II roads that everyone has been fighting about, which would overlay existing roads.

I’ve been guilty of using this formulation, mostly because it’s at least partly true. But that makes it partly wrong as well.

The tollways opening later this year are: Texas 45 North, an east-west road running from near Lakeline Mall to east of Round Rock; Texas 130, a north-south road running from north of Georgetown to U.S. 290 East (and eventually to south of the airport); and a Loop 1 extension, which will run from MoPac Boulevard’s current terminus at Parmer Lane and form a T with Texas 45 North.

The fourth tollway will be U.S. 183-A, a north-south road from near Lakeline Mall to north of Leander, due to open in March, or shortly thereafter.

Parts of all of these roads are brand new, cutting across farmland where there was no road before. In that sense, they are greenfield toll roads. But parts of all of them, in some cases large parts, overlay existing roads. Just like the proposed Phase II toll roads.

•Texas 45 North is the least green. At its west end, for about a mile, it will lay on top of RM 620. In the middle, it supplants FM 1325, and then for the rest of its eastern section takes the place of Louis Henna Boulevard.

Mind you, there will be free frontage roads where those old roads were before. But that’s what toll supporters have said about the Phase II roads as well, a caveat empty in critics’ view.

•The southerly two miles of the Loop 1 extension likewise fall on top of FM 1325, all the way to Merrilltown Drive. The former free route will still be there, but southbounders will have to make a couple of turns they didn’t have in the past.

•Texas 130 is mostly green, save for a short stretch overlaying FM 685. But when it is extended further south from Austin to Seguin, about 10 miles will be right on top of U.S. 183.

•U.S. 183-A will be mostly a new road, with only its southmost mile or so overlaying what used to be U.S. 183.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily make these roads bad in some way. And noting this won’t change anything, because they’re 80 percent or more done and will definitely be opening with toll charges on them.

But it does matter.

Some people have complained that after two proposed Phase II tollways in West and South Austin were shelved, only East Austin, with its greater concentration of black, brown and poor people, were getting stuck with all the toll roads on existing roads.

The truth of the matter is that far Northwest Austin, North Austin and Round Rock, all of them heavily populated with white, middle-class folks, are seeing miles of existing roads overlain with toll roads.

And they’re getting them first.

Below is an excerpt from an article on the legislature’s lack of fiscal discipline in using our tax money for what it’s meant to fund. Transportation has some of the worst examples…it’s time our politicians pay a price!

Dedicated revenue often spent on other things
by Christine DeLoma
Lone Star Report
September 4, 2006

You can always tell when the Legislature needs cash for its priorities. It raids the countryside for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars earmarked for specific purposes, including state parks, energy assistance for low-income Texans, and emergency medical services.

In some cases, funds left unspent in each account are used to balance the state budget.

Not that raiding dedicated funds is a new practice. Still, it’s useful to remember that in state budgetary matters there’s often more than meets the eye.

Herewith a rundown of some of the earmarked revenue sources recently used for purposes other than the ones for which they were created.

Texas Mobility Fund
This fund services debt on bonds issued to build roads. However, lawmakers last year diverted money from the mobility fund money and used it to finance the budget.

Consequently, the Texas Department of Transportation put a hold on the issuance of some road bond money because of concerns about the revenue stream that would service that debt. After negotiations between TxDOT and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the department and the Bond Review Board eventually went ahead and issued the bonds. The bonds were sold raising $1 billion.

As part of HB 3588, the 2003 omnibus transportation bill, a portion of the money raised by increased fines on bad drivers went to trauma care and another portion to the mobility fund.

Fund 6 – State Highway Fund
The State Highway Fund, aka, Fund 6, is dedicated for the construction, improvement, and maintenance of the state highway system. Funds are generated by state and federal gas tax dollars, motor vehicle registration fees, sales tax on lubricants and federal funds. The State Constitution directs 25 percent of state gas tax revenues to be redistributed to the Available School Fund and 75 percent to Fund 6.

The Legislature diverted nearly a billion dollars last year from Fund 6 to pay for non-transportation expenses including:

* $657 million for employees benefits such as insurance, retirement and Social Security for employees at the Department of Transportation, Department of Public Safety, Attorney General’s office, State Office of Administrative Hearings and the Texas Transportation Institute.

* $154 million for state employee pay raises

* $100 million for school buses

* $20 million to the Health and Human Services Commission to match federal Medicaid funds for eligible ambulance services
An organization of contractors and engineers, the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, opposes the use of Fund 6 for non-transportation purposes and has talked of a need for a constitutional amendment to prevent future diversions.

Texas Emissions Reduction Plan
Lawmakers have left over $100 million unspent in the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) account. TERP was created in 2001 to help non-attainment areas in the state reduce emissions and comply with the federal Clean Air Act. The fund generates 70 percent of its revenues from vehicle title transfer fees.

Last June, Ron Harris, Chairman of the Texas Clean Air Working Group and a Collin County Judge urged the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to seek all revenues generated from TERP in the agency’s legislative budget request.

“Our citizens are paying the fees to fund these programs and do not realize that substantial amounts of their tax dollars go unspent,” wrote Harris in a letter to TCEQ Commissioner Kathleen Hartnett White. “Also, at a time when many of our regions are struggling to develop sufficient control strategies to incorporate into our State Implementation Plans (SIPs), it is crucial that every available air quality dollar be integrated to solve our state’s air quality issues.”

Link to article here.

President Names Secretary of Transportation
By Johanna Neuman
Times Staff Writer
September 5, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush today named Mary Peters, a former chief of the Federal Highway Administration, to succeed Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation.

“Mary Peters knows the legacy she has to live up to,” said Bush, who praised Mineta for serving “with integrity and distinction” during his six years in the post, the longest term in U.S. history.

Peters also praised Mineta, the former San Jose mayor who served in Congress for 20 years and was the only Democrat in Bush’s Cabinet. Following Mineta, who oversaw the hasty creation of the Transportation Security Administration after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, would be “a bit like Ginger Rogers…I’ll be dancing backward in high heels,” she said.

Peters is a fourth-generation Arizonan, who headed that state’s Department of Transportation for three years and headed the Federal Highway Administration from 2001 to 2005. Last year, she contemplated running for governor of Arizona against Democratic incumbent Janet Napolitano but dropped out after a fellow Republican questioned her eligibility as an Arizonan because she had lived in Virginia during Bush’s first term.

Since November, Peters has been serving as national director for transportation policy in the Phoenix office of HDR, an architectural and engineering firm based in Omaha.

“Mary Peters is the right person for this job,” said Bush while introducing her in the Roosevelt Room. “She brings a lifetime of experience on transportation issues from both the private and the public sectors.”

In a recent interview, Peters advocated tolls for building new highways. “You just can’t depend on the federal government to bring the money in that was around when the interstate system was first built,” she said.

In today’s remarks, Peters talked of modernizing the nation’s transportation systems.

“We are experiencing increasing congestion on our nation’s highways, railways, airports and seaports and we’re robbing our nation of productivity and our citizens of quality time with their families,” Peters said. “In some cases this is the result of systems and structures that are more suited to a bygone era than to the 21st century.”

She also thanked her parents and grandparents, now deceased, because “they taught me anything is possible,” and she thanked God, “for without Him, nothing is possible.”

Link to article here.

The superhighway no one is funding
By Joseph Farah
World Net Daily
September 1, 2006

Another key congressman – Rep. Roy Blunt, majority whip in the House of Representatives – is telling his constituents the federal government has nothing to do with the idea of building the “NAFTA superhighway.”

This is at least the third Republican member of Congress either playing dumb or deliberately deceiving American taxpayers by claiming no federal dollars have flowed into the project.

In a form letter being sent by Blunt now to the many inquiries he and other members of Congress are getting about the project in the wake of a series of WND stories, Blunt makes the following statement: “The maps of a NAFTA superhighway were produced by a group called the North American SuperCorridor Coalition. This group is not a government agency. It is not associated with, its contents are not sanctioned by, and it receives no funding from the United States Congress, the Department of Transportation or any other government agency.”

On and on it goes. We have official after official denying the U.S. government’s well-documented role in financing the NAFTA superhighway – a project mandated by the trade agreement passed by Congress. What will they be denying next? That Social Security is going broke? Oh, yeah, I guess they will.

Anyway, Blunt joins Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who ridiculed the idea that there are plans to build the NAFTA superhighway and also affirmed in no uncertain terms that Congress has authorized no money for the project.

Then there was Rep. Jim Oberstar, R-Minn., who claimed through an aide, “There are no earmarks for a superhighway like that.”

Likewise, Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., has posted on his re-election campaign website a letter written by the former executive director of NASCO, the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, claiming there are no plans for building the superhighway and belittling WND for reporting on the subject.

Let’s set the record straight. Unless NASCO is lying on its own website, the federal government has allocated $2.25 million directly to NASCO “for the development of a technology integration and tracking project.”

In explaining what this means, NASCO says: “The project will have a team approach using members of NASCO as the primary participants in the project, to the extent possible. NASCO believes the deployment of a modern information system will reduce the cost, improve the efficiency, reduce trade-related congestion, and enhance security of cross-border and corridor information, trade and traffic.”

Is that clear? Sounds like our money is being well-spent. And it doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with a NAFTA superhighway, does it?

In addition, NASCO boasts of the creation of a NASCO Caucus within Congress. It talks of “coordinating the efforts of local, state and federal agencies and the private sector to integrate and secure a multimodal transportation system along the existing ‘NASCO Corridor.'”

Though NASCO has begun insisting on its website that “there are no plans to build a new NAFTA superhighway,” this statement is disingenuous to say the least. What the group means, when pressed, is that the superhighway it envisions will be built upon an existing series of highways. Thus, “new” is the critical word that keeps members’ pants from catching fire.

As to the claims by members of Congress that no federal money is being allocated to this project and that the agency has no connection to Congress, again, just look at what NASCO says:

• NASCO is “known as the strongest International Trade Corridor Coalition on Capitol Hill.”
• “Lobbying efforts have helped secure more than $150 million in corridor transportation project funding to date.”
• NASCO “helped gain more than $79 million in Corridor projects in FY03 through the National Corridor Planning and Development Program, ITS Program, Interstate Maintenance Program and the Discretionary Bridge Program.”
• NASCO “successfully lobbied to take the Highway Trust fund ‘off-budget,’ which resulted in increased transportation formula funding for NASCO’s corridor states.” (Maybe that’s why these members of Congress are having a hard time finding the money – it’s “off-budget.”)
• NASCO was “awarded a seat on the North American International Trade Corridor DOT (Department of Transportation) Steering Committee to oversee the development of the federally funded ITS/CVO study along the corridor.”

And, last but not least, please note this: “Since 1999, the federal government has directed more than $234 million in project funding towards the NASCO Corridor.”

My questions: Who’s lying? And why?

“If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.”

— Thomas Paine (Rights of Man, 1791)