Last week Bob Garrett, writing for the Dallas Morning News, told a one-sided story regarding the Texas Insurance Commission. As a result, Texas Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman chided Garrett, issuing a letter to lawmakers informing them that Garrett omitted “important, relevant facts” in his Thursday piece.
Kitzman has experienced growing pressure recently from liberals.
Last week Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) called for Kitzman’s removal. The weekend before that Steve Mostyn political employee Mark McCaig and left wing activist Alex Winslow attacked the commissioner on a radio program.
Prior to that Rep. Todd Hunter (R), Rep. Craig Eiland (D), and Rep. Chuy Hinojosa (D) attacked Kitzman over the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
Hunter, a former Democratic Representative who party swapped in the mid 2000s, received a $25,000 political contribution from Democrat mega-donor Steve Mostyn in 2010. Just weeks later Hunter mediated the TWIA dispute resulting in a massive $189 million award to Mostyn, his clients, and his co-counsel. During the legislative session Hunter met in secret with Mostyn and other Democrats.
One man who gets better than “the Kitzman treatment” from Garrett is House Speaker Joe Straus. Garrett interviewing the Speaker at the GOP convention in Tampa helped Straus try to rehab his terrible image with the grassroots.
Dredging up the June convention, Garret wrote that there were scattered boos when Joe Straus took the stage. He left out the fact that Straus benefitted from a well-engineered stage on which he emerged from House Republicans, many of whom the grassroots strongly support. It isn’t the first time Straus has benefitted from his more conservative House membership.
Garrett quoted Straus suggesting there wasn’t a walk out at the convention in June. In fact there was a walk out. Whether or not Straus could see it is irrelevant. That Garrett doesn’t correct the record is par for the course.
Garrett, like liberals generally, has been kind to Straus and unkind to Kitzman.