Texas Speaker Joe Straus Says Abortion is NOT a Serious Issue

Why would anyone who is against the killing of innocent unborn babies ever consider voting for Joe Straus? Joe Straus is not pro life. He voted against pro life issues before he became Speaker and enjoyed support from Planned Parenthood. Now that he is the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, he does not vote on bills. He certainly has not publicly stood up for pro life issues as Speaker and in the past as Speaker he has called it only a "wedge issue." The pro life legislation that passed in the 2011 Texas Legislative Session passed, not because of him, but in spite of him. Straus did not stand against it because he knew the pro life bills would pass anyways with a super-majority of Republicans in the Texas Legislature. He also did not stand for them though and given different circumstances, like less Republicans in the House, I believe Straus would stop playing to the super-majority and play both sides because he will need the Democrats in a split house.

Anyways, if it was not already clear that Abortion is not an important issue for Speaker Joe Straus then you should take a look at his most recent quote about abortion:

In an article from the Houston Chronicle,  Joe Straus brushed off the biggest pro-life bill of 2013 as maybe one of the thousands of bills to get filed. Straus then went on to completely label the pro life measure as not important by saying that he is only focused on "getting serious about serious issues" like infrastructure.

The genocide of millions of innocent unborn babies is not a serious issue Joe Straus?

Texas Speaker Joe Straus Says Abortion is NOT a Serious Issue, according to a Houston Chronicle Article dated 12/12/2012

from the Houston Chronicle:

Some GOP members plan to push for more stringent legislation involving abortion, including a ban on abortions for a fetus past 20 weeks.

Straus noted that thousands of bills get filed during every regular legislative session.

“It sounds like that may be one of them,” he said of the abortion measure. “The top of the agenda for me continues to be education resources and infrastructure – the things that will help Texas cope with the tremendous growth that we have seen in this state.”

Texas, he said, needs to “get serious about serious issues.”

Joe Straus Only Has 31 Votes for Re-Election as Texas Speaker of House - Bryan Hughes Breaking the Straus Stronghold

Article below from Weston Hicks of AgendaWise http://www.agendawise.com/2012/11/straus-has-only-31-votes/

The Texas Tribune, effectively acting as Team Straus’ press secretary right now, did a speaker vote count by phone last week.

Thirty-one. That’s how many Representatives are willing to go on record as solid Straus votes right now.

That means there are 129 votes somewhere on the wide spectrum of “maybe Straus, maybe Hughes”.
This is an embarrassment for a Straus Team that is rumored to have called members last week, puffing that they were releasing a list on Wednesday, and that everyone else was already on it. Wednesday came and went. This is next Wednesday. Oops.

The Tribune was quick to point out that they counted only one Hughes vote, Hughes himself, as if this restores order.

Even if this is true, a non-commital posture to the Boss and a non-committal posture to a rebel General are well beyond apples and oranges – they are apples and tire irons.

Today the Tribune ran Straus messaging about Bryan Hughes being a trial lawyer. AgendaWise wrote about that several weeks ago.

The fact is, Hughes voted in favor for every major piece of tort reform, and Texans for Lawsuit Reform isn’t trying to get rid of the right to a jury trial in Texas.

Rather, TLR has successfully fought the abuse of our court system. Only in a world in which TLR wants to abolish the right to a jury trial would they have any reason to oppose a Representative who has supported ending court system abuse, and who happens to also be a trial lawyer.

Straus, on the other hand, has as his speaker vote base the party of lawsuit abuse and open season on business. He even shared gambling interests with Steve Mostyn at the start of the 82^nd legislature, when Mostyn had been let into the ultra-exclusive racetrack license-holding club.

Team Straus was also puffing several weeks ago when a panel confidently declared that Straus had the votes, then began stuttering when an audience member asked if he had enough Republican votes.
Forget the Republicans. Straus doesn’t even have his Democratic base.