Karen Felthauser, HD 52, "For A Responsible Texas"

Karen Felthauser's blog post on her recent endorsement from Democracy for America (DFA) is up, For a Responsible Texas:

I am deeply honored to accept the endorsement of Democracy for America. My campaign is focused on supporting public education, public healthcare, and freeways not tollways.

Texas government has methodically stripped funding from our public school system. Texas has fallen to 40th in per pupil expenditures. We have a legislature which is intent on destroying public education through de-funding and privatization. Although our nation lags far behind other countries in science assessments, our Texas governor has announced in his bid for reelection that he supports teaching Intelligent Design as part of our science curriculum.

Did you know that, due to the sheer volume purchased, Texas, along with California, is the controlling market for textbooks in this country? That means that what Texas mandates in textbook subject matter affects what your students are exposed to. As the field director of the ultraconservative Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy puts it, "The bottom line is that Texas and California are the biggest buyers of textbooks in the country, and what we adopt is what the rest of the country gets." For that reason alone, I would ask you to please help me win this race.

Our legislators' support for health care is equally abysmal. Texas is last in the nation in the percentage of insured children. Our Child Protective Service has the highest workloads in the nation. More than 500 children in Texas died of abuse or neglect over a 2½-year period. Yet our representatives moved to privatize child protective services and further reduce the child protective workforce!

If they succeed in Texas to make most new roads into toll roads there are plans afoot to take this model nationwide.

I invite the DFA community to join me in this campaign to move Texas forward. www.karenfelthauser.com