by Karl Kurtz
On the day of the much watched recall elections in Wisconsin and statewide legislative primary elections in California, Iowa, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota, we're just getting around to reporting on last week's Texas primary.
Three Republican committee chairs were defeated in the May 29 primary election: Representatives Rob Eissler (a former officer of NCSL's Legisaltive Effectiveness Committee), Tuffy Hamilton and Vicki Truitt. The three were part of Speaker Joe Strauss' leadership team and were challenged by more conservative opponents. Four other incumbents, Representatives Marva Beck, Leo Berman (former member of the NCSL Executive Committee), Wayne Christian and Barbara Nash, were also defeated. There were no major themes in the challenges to those four incumbents.
In the Senate, long-time NCSL stalwart Sen. Jeff Wentworth faces a runoff on July 31 against Donna Campbell. The bitter first primary campaign featured three candidates who each received more than 30 percent of the vote.
Harvey Kronberg, the inveterate observer and reporter on Texas politics, discounted any major electoral trends in The Quorum Report:
...[T]his Republican primary was just another redistricting year event with little more than historically predictable volatility. It was metaphorically more about the Tea Party vs. the Chamber of Commerce.
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