Mike Collier Officially Announces For Texas Lt. Gov.

Incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is getting a Democratic challenger when he seeks re-election in 2018. Mike Collier officially announced he is running for the state office at a campaign stop in Round Rock, Texas.

A crowd of supporters gathered at the Sharon Prete Main Street Plaza in Round Rock on Saturday, June 17, 2017, to hear Collier announce he will challenge Patrick in 2018. He told the crowd they need a lieutenant governor that will bring Texas together, not apart.

Many in Texas Politics consider the lieutenant governor to be the most powerful person in state government because the person holding that office sets the legislative agenda for the state senate. Nothing passes the Texas Senate without the lieutenant governor’s approval.

Collier has criticized Patrick for not prioritizing legislation to fix Texas' public school funding, which places heavy property tax burdens on Texas home owners.

"We're very different in terms of public education," Collier said Saturday. "I'm pro-public education. I'm pro-teacher and retired teacher and he's not. We have very different points of view in terms of tax policy. I attribute high property taxes to republican fiscal policies. I'll show that on the campaign trail."

Collier announced in March of this year he was preparing to run for Texas Lt. Gov. in 2018. At the time, Collier said he planned to travel around the state and listen to voters to gauge support for his campaign before making a final decision to run for the office. "I will make an official announcement to run when I am confident I can run a winning campaign," Collier said in March.

In an email sent to supporters in March, Collier said, "Our Lt. Governor simply isn’t living up to our expectations," Collier said in the letter. "Texans want someone to fix our broken politics. It starts with sending Dan Patrick back to the radio entertainment business and putting someone serious in charge of the Senate." Collier wrote:

I love Texas and I’m proud to be a Texan. We're no nonsense, we love our families, and we have a generous spirit.

We expect our leaders to reflect these values, and when they don't, it's time to make a change.

Our Lt. Governor simply isn’t living up to our expectations. Instead of solving problems, bringing Texans together, and showing genuine compassion, he’s playing political games and pitting Texan against Texan.

Like you, I’ve had it.

That’s why today, I’m assembling a campaign team to run against Dan Patrick for Texas Lt. Governor. I'll be traveling the state, listening to Texans, raising money, building grassroots support, and when I am confident that I can run a winning campaign, I'll make a formal announcement.

We need a Lt. Governor that brings Texans together, not an ideologue that chases headlines and drives us apart.

Over the last few years, I’ve traveled all over Texas, talking to Texans who love our state and are worried about our future. Texans want someone to fix our broken politics. It starts with sending Dan Patrick back to the radio entertainment business and putting someone serious in charge of the Senate.

Collier ran an unsuccessful campaign for Texas Comptroller in 2014, losing to Republican Glenn Hegar in the lowest turnout election since 1942, during WWII.

Mike Collier, served the Texas Democratic Party as its finance chairman, from early 2015 to March 2017. He resign that post in March to focus on his campaign for lieutenant governor.

“Over the past year, Mike Collier has dedicated his time and talent to help build the permanent party infrastructure necessary to win,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the state Democratic Party’s chairman. “In no small part due to his efforts, Texas Democrats had the resources and vision to earn the best election cycle in two decades.”

Mike Collier Speaking At 
A 2016 Collin County Town Hall

Should Collier, a Houston-area resident, win the Democratic nominating primary in March 2018, he will challenge Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who was elected to his first term in 2014. Patrick said early this year he would run for re-election in 2018. While the GOP holds a clear advantage in statewide elections, Patrick has become a key lightening rod for Democrats as they focus on the 2018 midterms.

Collier says his number one legislative priority as Lt. Gov. will be strengthening Texas' public K-12 schools and universities. His number two priority, which is related to his goal of strengthening Texas' public schools, will be the state's tax policies. Collier says the tax scales in Texas have been tipped to place the mounting burden to fund Texas' public schools on Texas homeowners, as Republicans have increasingly eliminated business taxes paid by corporations doing business Texas. Collier says corporations, who depend on a well educated workforce, should pay their fair share of educating their future work force.

Collier's number three priority is corruption. He believes the one-party system in Texas, where Republicans have controlled the state's financial decisions through one party control of the state legislative, executive and judicial branches of government since George Bush was governor, has left the state's public education and transportation systems in decline.

Mike Collier joined BlogTalkUSA's Eyes Wide Open DemBlog Talk talk radio program co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Rheana Nevitt Piegols on several occasions over the past two years. Listen to these programs to get to know the new candidate running for Texas Lt. Gov.

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Mike Collier joined BlogTalkUSA's Eyes Wide Open DemBlogTalk co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on May 30, 2017 to talk about how his campaign for Texas Lt. Gov. is shaping up.

Program Link

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Mike Collier joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on April 11, 2017 to talk about his just released book, in which Mike relates stories about his experiences running for statewide office in 2014, and traveling the state since talking to Texans.

Program Link

Find Mike Collier's book, "Out of Comptrol: A Converted Democrat's Improbable Quest to Save Texas Politics," at the following links:

• At Google Books
• At Amazon Books
• At KOBO Books

Mike Collier joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on March 7, 2017 to discuss his decision to run for Texas Lt. Gov.

Program Link

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Mike Collier joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols to talk about Texas' state budget and economy on Tuesday, December 8, 2015.

Program Link

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After the 2014 election, Mike Collier embarked on a 2015 Texas "listen tour" talking Democrats across Texas for Texas Democratic Party Chair, Gilberto Hinojosa. Mike joined co-hosts Michael Handley and Rheana Nevitt Piegols on a September 2015 program to share what he learned on his listening tour.

Program Link

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Mike Collier Speaking At A 2014 Campaign Stop,  When He Was 
Running For Texas Comptroller

Sen. Bernie Sanders Responds To Pres. Trump

Senator Bernie Sanders recorded a 14-minute long video response to President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.

“Tonight, President Trump once again made it clear he plans on working with Republicans in Congress who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, throw 20 million Americans off of health insurance, privatize Medicare, make massive cuts in Medicaid, raise the cost of prescription drugs to seniors, eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, while at the same time, he wants to give another massive tax break to the wealthiest Americans,” Sanders said. ...“Let me be very clear in stating that I think those priorities are wrong.”

He also brought up the numerous contentious town halls that took place across the country recently.

“As a result, the Republicans are getting very, very worried,” he said. “They’re not so cocky anymore about simply repealing Obamacare. And they should be worried.”

Sanders also called upon Americans affected by the health care act to “keep showing up, keep calling Congress and continue the fight. The Republicans are now on the defensive, and we have to continue to push them back.”


Senator Bernie Sanders
Watch former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear deliver the "official" response to President Trump's first address to a joint session of Congress for the Democratic Party.

Democrats: Talk To Older Voters About GOP Plan To Repeal Medicare Benefits

The Affordable Care Act (ACA)  not only provides affordable access to health insurance for working-age Americans and their families, it also provides older Americans covered by Medicare and Medicaid a list of additional covered benefits. The ACA, a.k.a.Obamacare, improved Medicare coverage, boosted taxes and reduced program spending. Older Americans on Medicaid also would face a significant loss of benefits, because any effort to repeal Obamacare would affect the law’s major expansion of Medicaid, including how Washington pays states for administering the program.

For starters, the ACA greatly expanded the roster of tests and procedures that Medicare enrollees can get with little if any cost to make sure enrollees are healthy and to help them stay that way. Medicare’s list of so-called wellness provisions includes many items added by the ACA:

• Abdominal aortic aneurysm screening
• Alcohol misuse screening and counseling
• Bone mass measurements
• Breast cancer screening (mammograms)
• Cardiovascular disease (behavioral therapy)
• Cardiovascular disease screening
• Cervical and vaginal cancer screening
• Colorectal cancer screening
• Depression screening
• Diabetes screening and self-management training
• Glaucoma tests
• Hepatitis C screening test
• HIV screening
• Lung cancer screening
• Medical nutrition therapy
• Obesity screening and counseling
• Prostate cancer screening
• Sexually transmitted infections screening and counseling
• Shots (flu, pneumococcal, and Hepatitis B)
• Tobacco use cessation counseling
• “Welcome to Medicare” preventive visit
• Yearly “Wellness” visit

Good health does cost money, of course, but so does having to treat people who have not been taking care of themselves. Perhaps all of these measures would survive the repeal process. However, considering that some of these benefits might disappear, Medicare enrollees ought to work with their doctors right now to make sure they’re taking full advantage of these wellness benefits.

Another main Obamacare feature has been its reduction in out-of-pocket spending in Part D Medicare prescription drug plans. This has been accomplished through the elimination of the so-called “donut hole” by 2020. Medicare says enrollees have saved more than $2,000 per person, on average, because of this single change.

It’s quite possible, of course, that the donut hole will be totally gone by the time the “replace” components of “repeal and replace” actually have taken effect. Given the shouts from both parties about high drug prices, it seems unlikely that Republicans would have much appetite for being tagged with efforts to make people spend more money on prescription medicines.

Obamacare’s other big Medicare impact came via financial improvements it put in place to help the program. It raised a bunch of taxes, including requiring high-income wage earners to pay higher Medicare payroll taxes and stiff premium surcharges for Medicare Part B and D premiums. Health providers and Medicare Advantage insurance plans were also willing to accept lower payment levels from Medicare in exchange for the law’s provisions that would expand their access to more insurance customers.

Before the passage of the ACA, the Medicare trust fund that pays claims for Part A hospital and nursing home expenses had been projected to run short of funds by 2017. The ACA has pushed that date out more than 10 years.

Republicans reportedly want to do away with many of these taxes. Unless other funding streams are created to replace them, the longer-term finances of the program would be at greater risk. Ironically, these actions would “force” Republicans to cut health care spending to curb runaway deficits.

As actual GOP plans come into sharper focus, sharp Medicare battle lines will form for politicians and the public alike.  Expect the proposals to come coated in friendly sounding packages that tout health care improvements. But it will be crucial to look inside the packages to get an understanding of whether the Medicare program that would emerge from their enactment is one you want to have.

READ MORE: How plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act could affect Medicare

• What's going to happen to 70 million Americans who rely on Medicaid?
• Why the Emerging Bill to Repeal the Affordable Care Act Will Fail
• GOP Agenda To Cut Seniors' Healthcare
• What Working Class Americans Lose When Trump Scraps Obamacare
• Bernie Sanders Gets Ted Cruz To Support A Single-Payer Healthcare System
• GOP Bill To Repeal ACA - Obamacare 
• Republicans Looking For Obamacare Replacement Should Work With Democrats
• Sanders And Cruz Debate Healthcare Repeal For American Workers
• GOP Hit Seniors With Higher Healthcare Costs
• GOP Looking For A Healthcare Strategy
• Even Most Republican Voters Say Government Has Responsibility For Healthcare
• AARP: GOP Plan To Convert Medicare From “Defined Benefit” To “Defined Contribution” Program
• Republicans Plan To Destroy Social Security and Medicare
• Repealing Obamacare is a huge tax cut for the rich
• Obamacare repeal would also affect your employer health insurance

Race For DNC Chair Tightens

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley announced Saturday he has decided to withdraw his bid to be the Democratic Party's next national chairman and back Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to lead the party.

"While it was a tremendous honor to run for DNC Chair over the past few months, I am proud to throw my support behind Keith so we can ensure that the next Chair of the DNC is dedicated to investing in and strengthening state parties and ensuring that the DNC is an accountable organization," New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said in a statement today. "As I've talked to the DNC membership, it's clear Keith has widespread support, and I know as our next DNC Chair Keith will successfully unite and grow our party."

Ellison said he is "proud" to have Buckley's support. He added that he asked Buckley to "lead our effort to provide the support and resources the state parties need in a new and innovative 57 state strategy." (There are 50 state parties and seven in the territories and the District of Columbia.)

Ellison has the backing of many Democratic Party leaders, including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Al Franken (MN),  and numerous other party leaders including members of Congress and state Democratic Party leaders.

CNN announced Friday it will host a debate next week for the candidates running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The event in Atlanta is being called "Debate Night: Democratic Leadership Debate" and is scheduled for Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, just days before Democratic officials vote on a new chairman at the DNC's meeting in the same city Feb. 23-26.

"CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash and New Day anchor Chris Cuomo will moderate the primetime event live from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia just days before the Democratic Party chooses a new national leader," the network said in a press release. "The candidates will debate their visions and strategies for the 2018 midterm elections, how to rebuild the Democratic Party and the role of the DNC under the Trump administration."

Since mid-January, the DNC chair candidates have participated in four "DNC Future Forums," the last of which was last weekend, as well as several additional forums host by various activist groups.

More:

• DNC Chair Candidate Forum In Baltimore
• National Democratic Women's Club Forum for DNC Candidates
• DNC Chair Candidate Forum In Detroit
• DNC Chair Candidate Forum Live Streams And Candidate Guide
• But Clinton Won By 2.86 Million Votes
• Click here to view recorded live streams of the Baltimore, Detroit, Phoenix and Houston Future Forums