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March 6, 2026 2:22 PM
The initial fundraiser reached its goals but of course the true expense of sustained health care after an accident is much more
I am happy
to report that we exceeded our initial goals in raising money to help veteran Davey
Joe Montgomery cover his hospital bills.
However, as anyone who has dealt with long term hospital and rehab care
knows, our initial goal did not begin to cover the true expense.
So, I
thought I might tell one of the many untold stories about Davey Joe’s career
and see if we can rustle up some more dollars to meet new goals. You can donate
here.
Although
Davey Joe was stationed for seven years in the Soviet Union, I suspect this
untold story of speaker politics ranks right up there.
Republicans
gained the Texas House majority in 2003 and elected Tom
Craddick as Speaker. By 2007, his chairmen were frustrated at his
micromanagement and engineered an insurrection to try and take him out of the
chair. That ultimately failed.
But the
stage was set for a 2009 speaker’s race.
Amazingly,
Barack Obama had enormous coattails and in 2008, Texans elected 76
Republicans and 74 Democrats to the Texas House – a virtual tie.
Then-Democratic
Caucus chair Jim Dunnam said, “you guys won, you have the
majority, you get to pick the Speaker. All I can say is as long as it’s anybody
but Craddick, I can deliver at least 50-55 votes.”
And the
hunt was on.
Then
referred to as the Cardinals, mostly Republican chairman picked Joe
Straus.
It was a
heated race until…
Back then,
the pressroom was alive and robust, and Craigslist had not yet
destroyed newspaper classifieds, so it was a hotbed of energy and yelling and just
good times. But you could always hear Davey Joe’s accent over the din.
If memory
serves, he was working for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the
time and just as a routine speaker’s race story he contacted one of Craddick’s captains,
a state representative named Warren Chisum from Pampa Texas.
Not
particularly expecting an answer, Davey Joe who was in the next to me me asked Chisum, “so how many pledges do you have?”
Chisum did
not know how to lie or mislead so he just candidly said “well, 56”.
Completely
measured and without showing any emotion, Davey Joe simply said, “let me make
sure I got that right and repeat it back to you, you have 56 pledges, right?”
The room
went silent. Everyone knew that Davey Joe just got the scoop of the speaker’s
race and no one, including Quorum Report
was going to steal that scoop from him.
Representative
Chisum did not realize until later that he had just ended the speaker’s race.
An incumbent speaker with only 56 pledges days before session started was
toast.
They Startlegram (as it was known) published his
story and within a matter of days if not hours Joe Straus had all the votes he
needed to coast to victory.
It’s that
kind of reporting over many decades that’s shed so much light on developing
situations at the Texas Capitol.
Since
Davey Joe has always helped all of us understand what’s happening in Texas government,
we hope you’ll join us in helping
him and his wife now.
By Harvey Kronberg
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Copyright March 06, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 5, 2026 10:15 PM
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Copyright March 05, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 4, 2026 12:38 PM
Meantime Axios in DC reports that President Trump is expected to endorse Cornyn in the Texas Senate race. That's per a source with knowledge of the talks who spoke to the publication today
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Copyright March 04, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 4, 2026 11:05 AM
Subscribers
can download it.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
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Copyright March 04, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 4, 2026 7:53 AM
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Copyright March 04, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 4, 2026 1:40 AM
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Copyright March 04, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 11:01 PM
Dallas is Crockett’s home base and historically home to more than 10% of all ballots cast in Democratic primaries in Texas; the county GOP led by Chair Allen West refused a joint primary with Democrats leading to confusion about where voters could cast their ballot
AUSTIN – It
couldn’t just be a clean finish, could it?
Here in
Austin, Rep. James Talarico is holding off for now on moving forward
with a celebration and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett up in Dallas told
supporters she will not appear before them again this evening because she does
not expect final results just yet in the most-watched
Democratic US Senate primary in the nation.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 10:50 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 10:35 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 10:22 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 9:56 PM
Toth leads 57 to 39 with more than 57 percent of the vote in
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 9:53 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 9:48 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 9:02 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 8:56 PM
A judge in Dallas had ordered the polls to stay open until 9pm in the Democratic primary because of confusion at the polls. Those who voted after 7pm would have been given provisional ballots that now may end up in the trash
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 8:03 PM
Hancock at 23, Craddick at 12
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 7:57 PM
On the GOP side, Middleton is at 45, Roy at 27, Reitz at 13, and Huffman at 12. For the Democrats: Sen. Johnson leads Jaworski 47 to 28 percent with Tony Box at 24
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 7:51 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 7:46 PM
First early votes in: Cornyn with 44, Paxton at 38, and 13 for Wes Hunt. Rep Crockett now trails Talarico 52 to 47
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 7:38 PM
Vo leading Breaux in early vote 40 to 37
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 7:11 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 3, 2026 6:00 PM
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Copyright March 03, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 2, 2026 10:52 PM
HK told Spectrum News in Austin that it'll "roil the waters" if Abbott's endorsed candidates lose their primaries and the governor gets anything like 55% support in his own primary
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Copyright March 02, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 2, 2026 4:23 PM
Attorneys for the plaintiffs argue it’s extra egregious because Acting Comptroller Hancock was not elected to his position; Republicans and Democrats have agreed that it was an “inside job”; Hancock has said the program as it existed is “discriminatory and doesn't abide within the Constitution”
A lawsuit
filed in Travis County alleges acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock and
three stage agency heads overstepped their authority when they restructured a
longtime program meant to diversify the pool of state contractors. In December,
Hancock announced he was restructuring the Historically Underutilized
Business program to only focus on businesses run by veterans with certain
disabilities, cutting out people of color and women who have been included in the
program for decades. Hancock also renamed it VetHUB.
The
lawsuit also has Texas Capitol players again talking about the
way in which Hancock left the Senate and was, as one put it, “snuck into the spot
he’s in now.”
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By James Russell
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Copyright March 02, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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March 2, 2026 3:34 PM
“The time for deliberation has passed. The American people—and the people of Texas—demand immigration policies that place the safety and welfare of Americans first. Every day that Congress fails to act is another day that puts American lives at risk.”
Their
letter can be
downloaded here.
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Copyright March 02, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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February 27, 2026 3:26 PM
Meantime, reporter Patrick Svitek reports that Harris recorded a robocall on behalf of Crockett that Democratic voters are receiving today
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Copyright February 27, 2026, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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